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Los Angeles
From the Mountains to the Sea
lOHN STEVEN McGROARTY
WITH SELECTED BIOGRAPHY OF ACTORS AND WITNESSES
OF THE PERIOD OF GROWTH AND A'CHIEVEMENT
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME II
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAI, SOCIETY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1921
Copyright, 1921,
' BY
AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
\ 1131983
4^
LOS ANGELES
From the Mountains to the Sea
William Henry Workman. Statued against the background of
early Los Angeks history is a figure that stands out prominenily as tliat
of a pioneer city builder, a promoter of constructive enterprises, a leader
in civic activities, a benefactor of his fellovvmen — William Henry Work-
man.
Angclenos are just beginning to realize what William H. Workman
did for them, for the city, for California. Under the influence of strong
personality, they knew him and remember him best as "Uncle Billy," the
kindly character, the staunch friend. Through the hallowed memories of
years "Uncle Billy" is enshrined in the hearts of those contemporaries
yet living; and many those of more recent years ghan some concept
from this brief sketch of the life and works of this wonder man.
W. H. Workman, shorn of the personal halo which followed him
in life, stands out in Los Angeles history with ever-increasing prom-
inence. The man, the historical figure, the city father is assuming the
place that eventually the world accords the great in sifting th; wo th-
while doings of mankind. Some day, ere long, it is not too much to ex-
pect that to his memory and for the things he did for Los Angeles will
be erected a fitting monument of recognition and esteem.
Constructor of the first street railway, builder of Boyle He'ghts,
donor of many church sites and parks, organizer of banks, founder of
schools, public official of wide capacities, pioneer of many enterprises and
works of civic welfare — these, in composite, tell the story of the William
Henry Workman which will go down in the chronicles of Los Angeles.
Mr. Workman's activities were initiative. He had no models to go
by in carving out his career and in erecting the structures h; built ; he
had no precedents to follow. He saw the needs of the growing city of
Los Angeles and he created the means of relief; he builded from m:ntal
perspective ; he completed his works through sheer executive ability and
dynamic energy.
It is said that men of noted works are not really appreciated until
the lapse of fifty years. Let us not wait so long to relate the good deeds,
the great things accomplished by William Henry Workman.
As did many another pioneer, Mr. Workman crossed the plains in
an ox cart, migrating with his parents from Booneville, Missouri, to San
Francisco, and thence by water to San Pedro and Los Angeles, requir-
ing six months for the trip. The family reached Los Angeles on October
17, 1854, and from that date became a powerful factor in the develop-
ment of Los Angeles and Southern California.
The Workmans descended from hardy stock, forefather Thomas
Workman being a native of England, and John Hook of Virginia serv-
ing as a soldier under General Washington. David Workman and >Jancy
Hook were married in Missouri, and in New Franklin their son, W. H.
Workman, was born January 1, 1839.
Young Workman received his education in the Booneville public
schools and the F. T. Kemper Collegiate Institute. He then learned the
printers' trade, and when he reached California he immediately took a
4 LOS ANGELES
position with the Southern Californian, and later with the Los Angeles
Star.
Opportunity gave him a place as a clerk with the Banning Trans-
portation Company, and later as a mounted messenger for the company
between Los Angeles and San Bernardino, on which trips he frequently
carried large sums of payroll money.
The business venture upon the foundation of which he built his
fortune was a partnership with his brother, Elijah H. Workman, in a
manufacturing, harness and saddlery business at 76 Main street. Hides
and harness, with accessories, were the substantial articles of trade in
early days, there being a time when hides were used as mediums of ex-
change — as "money," in fact.
As a merchant young Workman was a success and he found time
to enter other lines of activity of a political, civic and development nature.
With a tenacity, industry and cheerfulness almost beyond belief, he
carried through each new venture to success. He initiated many projects
and was more responsible, perhaps, than any other one man for the
speedy growth of the city.
It is hard to say whether in business building, traffic development or
civic duties Mr. Workman accomplished more for Los Angeles. In
whichever line he became active, he looked far into the future for his
aspirations and worked with a view to the needs of the city in the years
to come, rather than for the requirements of thj moment. He was far
in advance of his day in his visions, and he initiated many things that
at the time, perhaps, were not appreciated so much as in the years that
followed, when they proved of immense value to the city.
Mr. Workman was a pioneer in street railway transportation m Los
Angeles and was also directly instrumental in securing or aiding the con-
struction of every steam line which entered the city.
In 1875 Mr. Workman built the single-horse car line which ran
from the junction of Main, Spring and Temple streets, then the business
center of the city, east on Aliso street to Pleasant avenue, in Boyle
Heights, crossing the river on a surface bridge.
In 1886 he secured a franchise and built at his own expense a broad-
gauge street q,ar line from First and Spring streets east on First to Ever-
green Cemetery. It remained a two-horse line until purchased by the
Los Angeles Cable Company, which made it into a cable road.
In 1888, when mayor, Mr. Workman operated the first electric car
of the Pico Heights Electric Railway Company on the day service was
inaugurated. In 1894 he constructed the Cummings street extension in
Boyle Heights. In 1896 he secured the franchise for the East Fourth
street line to Evergreen Cemetery, in Boyle Heights. He procured
$50,000 to aid in financing the construction of the Fourth street bridge,
donating $25,000 of it himself. ,
In 1909 he bid in the franchise for the East Seventh street line, which
ran out Stephenson avenue east of the river, and he induced the Los
Angeles Railway Company to assume the franchise and build the line.
Mr. Workman was even more active in steam railroad develop-
ment. In 1872 he aided the Southern Pacific to enter the county and
city of Los Angeles, with a depot at River Station. Later he aided the
Southern Pacific to conduct its traffic along Alameda street, through
Wolfskin orchards, and secured the donation of the site, provided the
road would build the Arcade station — which it did.
In 1875 he aided in the construction of the Los Angeles and Santa
FROM THE MOUN'l'AlNS TO THI-: SEA 5
Monica independent line to combat the interests then in control of freight
hauling between Los Angeles and San Pedro Harbor.
In 1888 Mr. Workman obtained for the Santa Fe tlie right to enter
the city provided it would construct a levee along the west bank of the
Los Angeles River to the present station.
Mr. Workman's crowning transportation feat was securing the Salt
Lake's entry into Los Angeles. Realizing during his career as mayor
that the dtv's future depended on getting more transcontinental facilities
and business, he made a trip from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City by
buckboard, scouting out the route, noting the traf^c possibilities and pre-
paring the people to aid in securing a railroad.
Then he went on to St. Louis and laid his data and plan before the
late U. S. Senator Richard C. Kerens and those associated with him in
the big terminal deal in St. Louis, and presented the facts so convinc-
ingly that Kerens and his associates put the road through.
Mr. Workman assisted the road to get into Los Angeles on the same
terms given the Santa Fe — to levee the east bank of the Los Angeles
River. He served as a member of the road's first board of directors,
and was of great help in developing the road's facilities, which also aided
Los Angeles.
As a business man Mr. Workman not only was a successful mer-
chant, but he promoted all manner of development projects, all of which
had much to do with the upbuilding of Los Angeles. He amassed quite
a fortune at this, but missed his greatest personal opportunity to become
a multi-millionaire when as mayor, in 1887 and 1888, he deliberately
sacrificed his personal aflfairs to attend to his civic duties in the days of
the big real estate boom. Fortunes were turned over and over again, a
large share of the prosperity being due to Mr. Workman's own efforts,
but in which he could not participate.
His largest contribution to the city's success was in purchasing and
subdividing Boyle Heights, a section that comprises about one-fifth of
the area and population of the whole city.
In the earlv days the Plaza was the geographical center of the city,
which, under the Pueblo grant, had secured title to a tract six miles
square (thirty-six square miles, with the plaza in the center), which ex-
tended across the river and far beyond the settled section.
After ])roviding for all business and residence sites, the municipality
sold ofif a large part of its land holdings to encourage development and
provide a civic income in taxes on improvements and increased popula-
tion. The land was divided into thirty-five-acre tracts, which sold for
twenty-five cents an acre to the east and north, and for fifty cents an
acre in the west and southwest, including the Westlake district.
Mr. Workman foresaw the possibilitirs of the subdivision plan and
also the success of farming the hill section, provided water could be
secured. A limited number of "close-in" farms had been sold near the
river where water could be obtained, but the ranchers feared to pioneer
the back sections.
Having, with his father-in-law, Andrevv A. Boyle, purchased the
land east of the river on the bluffs, comprising what is the whole of
Boyle Heights, Mr. Workman prepared to subdivide the property in
1876. He named the subdivision Boyle Heights in honor of his fa'her-
in-law. So as to secure water for domestic purposes, he p^id the City
Wat-r Company $30,000 to extend their mains across the Los Angeles
River to the new subdivision.'
6 LOS ANGELES
Here another epoch-making scheme was devised by this resourceful
man — an irrigation aqueduct that carried water from far in the hinter-
land to the large tracts which he proposed to cultivate. Los Angeles'
first large aqueduct, thereupon, became a reality, but not before Mr.
Workman engaged in long arguments with other members of the council
of fifteen, who were finally persuaded to make the investment for the
returns in water rentals and increased taxes.
The aqueduct was built from a point fourteen miles up the river,
where a sufficient gravity fall could be obtained to carry the flow into
the high ground behind the hills of East Los Angeles. The high line
canal route may still be traced in its torturous windings between the
hills; and the main r.servoir, No. 9, still makes a depression in the land
back of the zoo near Eastlake Park.
After securing water it was necessary for Mr. Workman to prove
that the lands were fertile in the high country. Theretofore people had
the impression that only the lands along the river were cultivable. He
planted the first vineyards and orchards in the neighborhood and on the
site of the present Hollenbeck Park. At large expense he secured cut-
tings of all varieties of grapes and other vines and experimented with
them to determine their value to this climate and soil. He did likewise
with other plants and deciduous fruits. He put in a private reservoir
and pipe line system and cultivated his land.
All that Mr. Workman had predicted proved true; his experiments
were successful. Boyle Heights became a garden spot under the magic
of water and cultivation, and a large population was established. An-
drew A. Boyle had built the first house ; Mr. Workman followed with
a mansion, which his widow and other members of the family still oc-
cupy. His children were born there, grew up and prospered. Boyle
Heights became rich and grew with the years — a monument to a man
of resource and energy.
Among other things, in later years, Mr. Workman became interested
in banking and organized the American Savings Bank at Second and
Spring streets, which is now a branch of the Home Savings Bank.
Mr. Workman's political and civic life are so interwoven that they
can not be separated. He took political office merely to aid in civic de-
velopment, and not for the honor or salary. He won the complete con-
fidence of his fellow-townsmen and the many offices to which they elected
him attested to their ideas of his worth.
From 1872 to 1879, inclusive, Mr. Workman was a city councilman
for eight successive terms. He was chosen mayor in 1887-88, was city
treasurer for three terms, 1901-07, and served as a park commissioner
and member of the board of education for a number of terms. He also
was a member and officer of many civic bodies.
When Mr. Workman became mayor, Los Angeles was a city with
some 30,000 inhabitants, whose form of government was regulated by
the state law. There were no paved streets, no electric cars or lights,
no parks ; there was no city charter, no city hall worthy the name, no
chamber of commerce, and little that a city of that size should have.
When he completed his two-year term Los Angeles had all these
things — and more — largely through the initiative and executive ability
of Mr. Workman.
To secure the proper government for the city, Mr. Workman started
the movement which resulted in the election of the first Board of Free-
holders, of which he himself was a member. The charter was formu-
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 7
lated for a city which mi§:ht develop to 50,000, it was thought, and it still
governs Los Angeles, which has grown twelve times as large as expected
in a little more than thirty years.
Mr. Workman also institut d the campaign, and signed the contract,
for the construction of the present City Hall, in those days a magnificent
structure. He was one of the group which started the present Chamber
of Commerce, and was its first vice president during his term as mayor.
He was instrumental in or':;anizing the Sixth District Agricultural Park
Association, being on the first board of directors.
He was the first to institute the park improvements. He donnte.d
two-thirds of the land, and secured the gift of the remainder, for HoUen-
beck Park, on Boyle Heights. He foresaw that in time the people would
need "breathing spots," as he called it.
Westlake Park was then a desert with alkali cones dominating it.
Mr. Workman and others interested caused these to be levelled and. to
get anything to grow, it was necessary to cover the entire park with a
layer of soil. This required an expenditure of money and he induced the
council to set aside a regular amount to be devoted to the care of parks.
He was active in the laying out of South Park, Central Park, Easllake
Park (now Lincoln) and Echo Park.
Street work had always been a hobby with Mr. Workman. In the
early seventies he induced the board of supervisors to build the first
bridge over the Los Angeles River, at Macy street. It was covered and
was constructed in two spans, totaling some 300 feet across. He also
secured the construction of a wooden bridge at Aliso street, and another
at First . street. He secured the opening of First street east to Boyle
Heights in 1875.
Later he induced the Santa Fe, the Los Angeles Cable Company
and the city to build the first viaducts over the river at First street and
Downey avenue, each bearing one-third of the expense.
When he became mayor, Mr. Workman started proceedings to pave
streets, the first in the city. He continued active in this line all of the
remainder of his life, as he had many properties in front of which he
wanted good paved streets and was willing to bear his share of the
assessments.
As city treasurer Mr. Workman strongly backed the Owens River
aqueduct, routed from Inyo County to Los Angeles. In conjunction with
the city attorney he went to New York City and sold the bonds. Dunng
the time he held this office he withdrew from circulation $2,500,000 and
guarded it in the city's vaults at his own expense because the law did
not pennit its deposit in banks. He took up the matter with the State
•Legislature and secured the passage of a law permitting the city to de-
posit its funds at interest with banks giving proper security.
Mr. Workman might have had higher political honors. While
mayor his friends mentioned him for governor, but he said : "I'd rather
be mayor of Los Angeles than governor of California." He also refused
to permit his name to be used as a candidate for United States senator.
As a citizen ]\Ir. Workman was interested in every worthy work
that was proposed. He donated five church and many school sites, in
addition to Hollenbeck Park. He assisted in the organization of the
first high school in the early seventies, when a member of the Board of
Education, and aided in the construction of the building.
Mr. Workman was married, in 1867, to Miss Maria E. Boyle, who
(in 1920) lives hale and hearty. There are seven children: Boyle Work-
8 LOS ANGELES
man, president of the Council of the City of Los Angeles (1919-21) ;
Mary ; Elizabeth ; William H. Workman Jr., secretary and general man-
ager of the Los Angeles Morris Plan Company; Charlotte, Gertrude and
Thomas E.
Mr. Workman died on February 21, 1918. His body lay in state in
the City Hall, and his memory is honored by all Los Angeles.
Boyle Workman. Considered apart from his prominent family
relationship in Los Angeles, Boyle Workman has had an active experi-
ence in business and public affairs that is the best sort of justification
for the reputation he enjoys as one of the city's most useful, energetic
and public spirited men.
A son of the late William H. Workman, whose life and family are
sketched elsewhere, Boyle Workman was born September 20, 1868. His
birthplace was the first modern house constructed on Boyle Heights. The
builder of this home was Andrew A. Boyle, his maternal grandfather.
Andrew A. Boyle was the first American to locate in that community,
while Boyle Workman was the first American born th?re.
Other houses then occupying the site were all adobe after the man-
ner of the Spanish regime. Tha Boyle house was built of brick. As
a boy in that locality Boyle Workman could look over to the east and
see not a single habitation nor tree to obstruct his vision as far as the
hills, a vast tract of land now cut up in ranches and oil fields. These
lands were acquired by his grandfather and his father and subdivided,
with many generous donations of sites for schools and churches.
Boyle Workman attended St. Vincent's College, which then stood
at Seventh street and Broadway. From his home out on the Heights
he rode horseback to school. Where the Los Angeles Athletic Club
stands today was an orange orchard owned by the college. Mr. Work-
man in 1884 entered Santa Clara College for a time, but returned to St.
Vincent's College and graduated in 1887. At that time his father was
mayor of Los Angeles.
The hall where the graduation ceremonies were held was upstairs on
Main street, between* First and Second streets. Boyle Workman's
graduatiris: essay was on the subject of Southern California, and in the
course of his survey he predicted many improvements which have since
been more than realized.
From school he entered his father's office, part of the time acting
as mayor's clerk. Offices in that day were not equipped with type-
writers, and he wrote the mayor's messages and documents in longhand,
and some of his writing is today in the archives of the city.
From school days to the present Boyle Workman has been a deep
student of municipal government. It is a subject that appealed to him,
and he also had the invaluable advantage of association with his father,
and even while a boy gained a mature insight of some municipal sub-
jects that are scarcely understood during the lifetime of the average
citizen. To this early training under his father Mr. Workman attributes
much of the municipal knowledge which has made him a valued public
servant in later years.
In 1889, when his father retired from office, Boyle Workman joined
the local interests at that time changing the horse car to a cable system
of street transportation. He became assistant to E. L. Lewis, then
cashier of 'he company. Later he engn^ed independently in the fire in-
surance business as manager for Southern California of the Home Mutual
Fire and Marine Insurance Company of California.
FROM THE MOUNT,\INS TO Tni<: SF.A 9
In 1895 Mr. Workman married Miss Frances Widney, daughter of
Judge and Mrs. R. M. Widney. Mrs. Workman is a native of Los
Angeles, and her family came to Southern California the same year that
Boyle Workman was born. Mr. and Mrs. Workman have two children,
Eleanor and Audrey, both residents of Los Angeles. Mrs. Workman is
president of the Los Angeles branch of the Needlework Guild of America,
a charitable organization having a membership of five thousand in Los
Angeles and more than four hundred thousand members in the United
States.
After his marriage, Mr. Workman took up manufacturing at Boyle
Heights, organizing a brick yard and installing modern machine pro-
cesses. L'p to that time all the local brick was hand made by Chinamen.
It was the first important industry in the Boyle Heights section. The
Hollenb:ck Home for Old People was built entirely from brick manu-
factured here by the Monarch Brick Company, of which Mr. Workman
was secretary. The business was continued with much success for sev-
eral years, notwithstanding the active competition of yards operated Dy
Chinese labor. One innovation introduced in the brick yard was fuel
oil for the kilns instead of wood, the usual fuel.
After disposing of the brick business, Mr. Workman became a
draftsman in the city engineer's office. In 1900 his father was elected
city treasurer, and Boyle became assistant city treasurer, and for three
consecutive terms had practically entire charge of the office. Here he
showed his administrative ability. One of the first reforms he suggested
to his father practically amounted to placing the city government on a
cash basis. Up to that time tax monies bad been collected twice a year,
and in the intervals the city treasurer had no funds to meet current de-
mands. Mr. Workman began building up a system of surplus funds so
that bills could be paid q*- anv time of the year. He also introduced a
system of daily balances, checking with the auditor's office, and that sys-
tem is still in use.
On leaving the treasurer's office in 1907, Mr. Workman organized
the American Savings Bank at Los Angeles. He was chosen assi-tant
cashier, while his father was the first president. When William H.
Workman, on account of the growing interests of his real estate hold-
ings, resigned as president, Boyle Workman became vice president, serv-
ing until 1913, when the Home Savings Bank and the ^American Savings
Bank were consolidated.
The first branch bank in Los Angeles was established by Mr. Work-
man on Boyle Heights, known as the Boyle Heights Branch of the Amer-
ican Savings Bank. Eventually other branches were established in other
sections of the city. Later the American Savings Bank had seven
branches, and Mr. Workman continued as vice president of the con-
solidated institution.
When Judge H. H. Rose was elected mayor of Los Angeles, his
first appointment was to call Boyle Workman to the Public Service
Commission, in July, 1913. Some big improvements in Los An^^eles
transpired during his incumbency. Mr. Workman and his associates
handled the task of absorbing a number of small water distributing con-
cerns, the largest of which was the Hollywood Water Company. The
great aqueduct supplying Los Angeles from the mountains was finished
and the water turned on while he was a member of the commission.
Some important hydro-electric development was also done, par-
ticularly the installation of Power House No. 1 in San Francisquito
10 LOS ANGELES
Canyon, that being the first unit in a proposed municipally owned hydro-
electric system. The current from this plant was distributed through
th; East Side, particularly Lincoln Heights, and was the beginning of a
program of promising development to the advantage of consumers,
though subsequent extension of the plan was forestalled by the World
war.
Mr. Workman retired from the Public Service Commission January
I, 1917, and in October of that year sold all his banking interests. Since
his father's death, in 1918, he has managed the extensive estate.
During 1919 rnany groups of thoughtful Los Angeles citizens pointed
out the availability of Boyle Workman as candidate for mayor. He de-
clined the candidacy, though he consented to run for member of the
Council. There were forty candidates before the voters, and in the elim-
inating process .Mr. Workman stood second highest, and among the
eighteen presented to the voters for final ratification he received the
largesf vote of all.
On July 7, 1919, Mr. Workman became a member of the City Coun-
cil and was chosen president of that body, an office where his long expe-
rience in municipal afifairs, his tact and ability makes his service one of
real distinction.
Mr. Workman is president of the United States "Gesel-Plan" Cor-
poration, which was organized September 24, 1919, with a capital stock
of $5,000,000. The plan on which this institution is conducted seems
destined to have a great growth and popularity in America, since it com-
bines the features of the savings bank account with the protection of life
insurance. Mr. Workman is a member of the California Club, the Los
Angeles Athletic Club, Los Aug les Country Club, Los Angeles City
Club and Union League Club of Los Angeles.
Edward L,\ueence Doheny. The last word in supjrfluity would
be to explain who Edward L. Doheny is or "introduce" him to the pres-
ent or the next generation. But as a resident of Los Angeles for the
past thirty years some of the more important incidents in his dramatic
career deserve record in this publication.
He was born in a family of respectable and hard working people
in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, August 10, 1856, son of Patrick and
Eleanor Elizabeth (Quigley) Dcheny. He grew up in the best kind of a
home to develop sound character, one equally removed from extreme
poverty and from the luxury of wealth. He hns always owed much to
the superior intelligence and influence of his good mother. His early
years were distinguished chiefly by a keen intelligence that enabled him
to graduate from high school at the age of fifteen. Mental arithmetic
was his favorite subject. He graduated in 1872 and almost immedi-
ately began a life of adventure and strenuous outdoor activity. Some
years ago Mr. Doheny confessed that he had lived so many years in
the open that he found it difficult to accommodate himself to th; con-
ventionnl steam heat and soft beds of modern civilization.
Joining a surveying party under the United States Government he
went to Kansas, assisting in surveying government land, the following
year was in New Mexico, then returned to Kansas and during tne year
1873-75 had an interesting experience among the blanket Indians of
what is now ^^'estern Oklahoma, assisting in subdividing the K'owa and
Comanche reservations. In 1876 he joined an expedition to the mming
district of the Black Hills. The Federal Government dispersed the
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 11
party and drove them out of the then Indian Reservation. Mr. Doheny
was also frustrated in his next venture, an attempt to find a fortune in
the mining district of the San Juan country in sonthwestern Colorndo.
From Silverton, Colorado, h: and some associates wandered mto the
southwest, arriving at Prescott, Arizona, and during the next fourteen
years he held his own among the keen and resourceful gold prospectors
in Arizona and New Mexico. He discovered and helped develop some
of the most promising claims in tliose two southwestern territories.
Probably the chief characteristic of Mr. Doheny is thit found in
Kipling's character of "Tbe Pioneer," whose desire and vision are al-
ways "over the passes," and once the interest of discovery .and newness
has worn oiT the rewards of wenlth hold no charm to detain him. Sev-
eral tim.es it is said that Mr. Doheny was within reach of considerable
wealth when he sold his claims and resumed the more interesting role
of prospector.
During the seventies and eighties Mr. Doheny was always in con-
tact with the raw and elem ntal factors of the southwestern country.
He fought Indians and he fought wild animals, and accepted daily danger
as a commonplace of his work. In one encounter his hand was mangled
by a mountain lion. Again as the result of a fall in a mine his legs were
broken, and while recuperating he bent the resources of an active m'nd
to the study of law, and was qualified for admission to practice in six
months. For a year or so he contented himself with the routine of a
practicing attorney. By similar study Mr. Doheny also acquired a
knowled?e, surpassing that of manv graduates of technical colleges,
in the sciences of geology and metallurgy.
Mr. Doheny is widely known among his friends as an exemplar
of the simple life. He yielded nothing to his partners in willingness to
accept hardship and danger, but was free from practically all the vices
associated with westerners, and has never used alcoholic liquor or to-
bacco.
One of his prominent associates both in New Mexico and also
in his early days in California was C. A. Canfield. They tried to develop
a gold mining claim in San Bernardino County, California, but finally
abandoned it and not long afterward Mr. Doheny came to Los Angeles.
A few years ago he told the story of the first drilled well in the
Los Angeles oil field. He and his fellow prospector in 1892 had ob-
served certain signs which convinced them, of the presence of oil sand
within the city limits of Los Angeles. They possessed limited capital
and practically no experience in oil well operations. Buying a small
lot at the corner of West State and Cotton streets, instead of a well
they began sinking a shaft in November, 1892. They had laboriously
excavated to a depth of about fifty feet when they struck a small pocket
of oil and gas, and were nearly asphyxiated before they could reach the
surface. They continued the slow progress, but eventually took into con-
sideration the danger they ran and also cast about to find better machin-
ery and eventually the well was sunk to a depth of six hundred feet
and yielded forty-five barrels a day. That was the pioneer operation in
the Los Angeles oil field, and the success of Doheny attracted thousands
to the district. Even after becoming an oil producer Mr. Doheny's
career was not without vicissitudes. In 1896 at the age of forty he
was still a poor man. Then followed the development of the Fullerton
oil district of California, and later his operations in the Bakersfield
district, and since then for twenty years there has been no more impos-
12 I.OS AXGELES
ing figure in all the history of petroleum than Edward L. Doheny. In
this later and familiar period of his life's activities, he has been dominated
by the same ambition for achievement as in earlier years. From Cali-
fornia he turned his attention to Mexico and with his associates bought
several hundred thousands of acres of land in the vicinity of Tampico
near the Gulf coast and in 1900 organized the Mexican Petroleum Com-
pany, which sunk the w.Us and started the development that have made
the Mexican petroleum field probably the greatest in the world.
Mr. Doheny is president of the Mexican Petroleum Company, Lim-
ited, and also president of the Pan- American Petroleum and Transport
Company, owning the extensive pipe lines and a large fleet of tank
steamers through which during the World war a large part of the fuel
oil used by the British and allied navies was supplied. Mr. Doheny is
also president of the Huasteca Petroleum Company and the Petroleum
Transport Company. In July, 1917, he became a member of the first
committee on oil of the Council of National Defense.
Mr. Doheny is a member of the California and Jonathan Clubs of
Los Angeles, the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, and the Union League
Club of Chicago. His home is at 8 Chester Place in Los Angeles. Mr.
Doh.ny confesses that the greatest find in his entire life was his wife,
Carrie Estelle Betzold, of ?\Iarshalltown, Iowa. The)' have a son, E. L.
Doheny, Jr.
Edward L. Doheny Jr., prominent in Los Angeles' business an(;l
social circles, is the able lieutenant of his father, Edward L. Doheny St.,
one of the most prominent petroleum producers in America. The career
of his father, who has been active in the oil districts of the Pacific Coast
for nearly a quarter of a century, is sketched on other pages.
The son was born at Los Angeles November 6. 1893. Frail health
interfered with his early education and training. He attended Norwood
Street Grammar School until 1907. then entered St. Vincent's College,
where he spent one year, and graduated from high school in 1911. For
three successive years he attended university, but on account of ill health
his total period of work aggregated only eight months. Subsequently
he completed his education with the A. B. degree at the University of
Southern California in June, 1916.
From early boyhood he was brought in contact with the oil industry
under his father, and after leaving university he spent a month at Tam-
pico, Mexico, in the district where his father has been one of the most
prominent oil operators. He also attended a military training camp at
Monterey, California, and after returning to Los Angeles worked in his
father's office until November, 1916. At that date he enrolled as an
apprentice seaman in the Naval Militia, and in January, 1917, was com-
missioned a lieutenant on the cruiser "Huntington." He served for
three months and was then transferred to Washington in the office of
the judge advocate general in charge of all summary court-martial. Mr.
Doheny, in September, 1918, was given orders by Rear Admiral Philip
A. Andrews to report to Cardiff, Wales. The night before he was to
sail he fell a victim to the influenza, and soon afterward was sent back
home to Los Angeles on a two months' sick leave. Upon recovery he
was stationed for duty at the submarine base at San Pedro, in Los An-
geles Harbo'-, and January 24. 191S, was given orders for inactive duty.
Since resuming civil life Mr. Doheny has found his time and energies
fully taken up with his many executive duties in connection with oi! and
other business corporations.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 13
He is a director and treasurer of the following corporations : The
I'an American Petroleum and Transport Company, The Mexican Petro-
leum Company (Ltd.), Mexican Petroleum Corporation of Louisiana,
Mexican Petroleum Corporation, Huasteca Petroleum Company.
Among the social organizations with which he is identified in Los
Angeles are the University Club, California Club, Los Angeles Athletic
Club and Los Angeles Country Club. Mr. Doheny married Miss Lucy
Smith at Los Angeles June 10, 1914. Her grandfather, C. W. Smith,
was one of the first vice-presidents of the Santa Fe Railroad Company.
Three children have been born to their marriage: Lucy Estelle, born
Tune 21, 1915: Edward Lawrence III, born February 8, 1917. and Wil-
liam Henry, born March 12, 1919.
General Piiine.ks Bak.xing. Wilmington, now Los Angeles Har-
l)or, as the ocean gateway of greater Los Angeles is popularly considered
and frecpiently spoken of as a part of the great modern era and a dis-
tinctive chapter in the recent historj' of progress. As a matter of fact
this development was anticipated nearly fifty years ago by the late Gen-
eral Phineas Banning, founder of the town of Wilmington on the shores
of San Pedro liay. It was a long cherished ideal of General Banning to
see that harbor linked up with the great commerce centering in Los
.Vngeles, and while the broad realization of his plan was delayed for
over thirty years after his death, it is proper to say that no one of the
old time generation around Los .\ngeles contributed more directly to the
result than General Banning.
General Banning, who was one of the earliest American pioneers of
Scjuthern California, was born in Newcastle County. Delaware, Septem-
ber 19, 1831. He was the ninth among eleven children of John A. and
IClizabeth (Lowber) Banning, and though his early life w^as not encom-
])assed by wealth he inherited the substantial worth of some of the best
colonial American stock. He was descended from Phineas Banning who
crossed the ocean from England and became one of the early farmers
in Kent County, Delaware. I*'or several successive generations members
of the family enjoyed considerable prestige in public affairs both in their
locality and state. John, a .son of the pioneer Phineas, was a mer-
chant at Dover and served as a member of the Council of Safety during
the Revolutionary War. He was also one of the three electoral delegates
from Delaware "to choose the first president of the United States, and
cast his vote for General Washington. His son, John A. Banning,
father of General Banning, was one of the early graduates of Princeto^i
College, a man of ripe scholarship, and a life-long resident of Delaware.
An independent spirit as well as his presence in a large household
with limited means sent Phineas Banning out to seek his ow^n fortune
at the age of twelve years. He walked to Philadelphia, where he joined
an older brother, A\illiam, who had recently begun the practice of law.
He worked in his brother's law office for his Ixiard. and afterward was
employed in a wholesale establishment.
At the age of nineteen, in 1851, Phineas Banning sailed for the
Isthmus of Panama, and came up the Pacific Coast on a vessel that
cast anchor in the harbor of San Diego. For more than thirty years he
w as one of the men of leading enterprise in the Los Angeles district. He
engaged in the freighting business betw^een Los Angeles and San Pedro
in November, 1852, and this enterprise in transportation brought him
14 LOS ANGELES
a vivid realization of the importance of the San Pedro harbor. Close to
the vvaterironc he established a village which in honor of the chief city
of his native state he named Wilmington. For a number of years he
was manager of the Los Angeles and Wilmington Railroad which had
been consiructed by him. He twice appeared before congressional com-
mittees at Washington to secure necessary appropriation for development
of the San Pedro harbor and never lost an opportunity at the command
of his resources to control and direct the shipping business that would
link San Pedro with the larger city of Los Angeles. General Banning
bought and improved six hundred acres near W ilmington and with the
aid of a steam pump large reservoirs and the largest wells in the county
furnished an abundance of water for Wilmington and San Pedro and
for the vessels that anchored in the harbor. Other undertakings of
direct public benefit were credited to his great energy and judgment.
General Banning was a very generous man, and his generosity stood as
a bar to the accumulation of individual fortune, though the property he
left has become the basis of a fortune since his death.
He served as brigadier-general of the First Brigade, California State
Militia, and was a republican ihou'rh never active in politics. General
Banning died at San Francisco March 8, 1S85. His first wife was
Rebecca Stanford, by whom he was the father of eight children, three
of whom are still living. On February 14, 1870, he married Mary E.
Hollister, daughter of a California pioneer. Mrs. Banning passed away
on South Commonwealth Avenue, in Los Angeles. She was the mother
of three daughters.
Hancock B.\nning. A son of one of the Southern California's most
conspicuous pioneer characters, the late General Phineas Banning, Han-
cock Banning has to his credit more than thirty-seven years of business
activity in and around Los Aneeles. A practical business man and large
property owner, his influence has been a helpful factor in a number of
modern developments in the life and progress of the greater city.
He was bom at Wilmington, Los Angeles County, May 12, 1865.
He acquired his early education in public schools and on his father's
vessels and has held a master mariner's license from the United States
Government since he was twenty-one years of age. After completing a
business college course he undertook his first business venture at Pasa-
dena, where he established the Pasadena Transfer and Fuel Company,
and afterwards moved to Los .\ngeles, where in 1889 he established a
wholesale coal department. The Pasadena branch was sold in 1891, and
later his business was operated under the name Banning Company, he
being manager of its fuel department. Mr. Banning was an equal
stockholder with two brothers in the Banning Company, his brothers
being J. B. and William Banning. This corporation owned extensive
real estate holdings in Los Angeles and on the Wilmington water front,
now part of Los Angeles harbor.
Hancock Banning was for more than twenty-five years vice-president
of the Santa Catalina Island Company. His brother, William Banning,
organized and was president of this company. Hancock had an equal
interest with William and his other brother, J. B. Banning, in the owner-
shi]) of Santa Catalina Island until 1919, when they disposed of their
interests in this famous resort to the Chicago capitalist, William Wrigley.
^^:z^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 15
Jr. Prior to that time the Bannings had completed the Hotel St. Cath-
erine, which together with the company steamers Cabrillo and Hermosa
and other improvements represented an investment by them of over two
million dollars.
Mr, Banning now makes his home at the old Banning mansion at
Wilmington, where he was born. That home had also sheltered his
grandn. other, and Mr. Banning's granddaughter has lived there, thus
giving it the associations of five generations. Mr. Banning is a member
of the Native Sons of the Golden West, the California, Jonathan, Los
Angeles Country and Los Angeles Athletic Clubs of Los Angeles and
the Bohemian Club of San Francisco. He is a member of the Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce and is a Hoover republican in politics.
In November, 1890, at Los Angeles, he married Anne Ophelia Smith,
daughter of former Judge George H. Smith of the Appellate Court of
California. Since her marriage Mrs. Banning has been very active in
man\- social and patriotic movements. During the war she originated the
plan and established what was called the "Red Cross Shop" serving as
president of the Los Angeles branch. This shop idea was afterward car-
ried out in many cities of the United States, and not only the Red Cross
but other charitable institutions have adopted the idea. During the
jvar the Red Cross Shop did a business aggregating millions of dollars,
and the plan is still yielding great returns to various charitable organi-
zations. *
Mr. and Mrs. Banning have a daughter and two sons. The daughter,
Eleanor Anne, is a graduate of the Marlboro School for Girls at Los
Angeles, attended the Miss Spence School of New York City and the
State University of California. She was married to J. C. MacFarland,
nephew of Judge MacFarland of the State Supreme Court. Mr. and
Mrs. MacFarland have a daughter, Anne Banning.
The older son, Hancock Banning, Jr., born in 1893, is a graduate
of the Virginia Military Institute and Cornell University. At the out-
break of the war with Germany he abandoned his work as an apprentice
at electrical engineering in the General Electric Company's plant at
Schnectady, New York, to enlist in the navy. He was serving on the
U. S. Battleship "New York" at the time of the armistice and served
until discharged after the signing of the same with the rank of lieutenant
of the junior grade. He has since resumed his work with the General
Electric Company.
The second son, George Hugh, born in 1896, held rank as a second
lieutenant when discharged from the Aviation Corps. He had studied and
taught flying at San Antonio, Texas, San Diego and Sacramento. Since
the war he has graduated from the University of California. George
Hugh possesses distinctive literary gifts. With a fellow student he
collaborated a comedy which was selected in competition with other
aspiring dramatists of the university, and was successfully produced at
Berkeley. He is also a navigator of sailing and steam vessels, having
served his time at sea before the mast, and having studied navigation
both at college and during his practical apprenticeship at sea. He is
at this writing on the "Chronicle" newspaper force.
The Red Cross Shop as a distinctive feature of the auxiliary war
work originated in Los Angeles, and the mind and heart from which
16 LOS ANGELES
proceeded the great and fertile idea were those of Mrs. Hancock Ban-
ning. It is due the shop as an institution, to Mrs. Banning and her
associates, to make some particular reference to the institution and its
work. The best account is found in an article written in the summer
of 1918, when the war was at its height.
"More than a year ago," says Ruth Burke Stephens, "I had the
pleasure of learning something of Mrs. Banning's original plans for
the Red Cross Shop. Even then the contagion of her idea, illuminated
with her own enthusiastic faith in its ultimate success, spread to the
little group of friends to whom her plans in detail were confided. With
one exception, this original plan has been carefully adhered to, and so
complete was the conception in its initial details that but few new
ideas have been incorporated.
"The Red Cross Shop in all its many ramifications is nothing short
of wonderful, and particularly is this so when one considers that it is
essentially a big commercial business, successfully conducted by women
who before the war scarcely knew the value of money, and nothing what-
ever of business principles. Without the co-operation and the enthusiastic
interest of her copatriots, Mrs. Banning's plan could, however, never
have developed to the advanced state of realization that it has now
reached. It is the very spirit behind the plan, the great integral factors
of self-sacrifice and democracy which has carried the idea along like
a swiftly propelled boat in the surge of a well directed current.
"When Mrs. Banning first planned the Red Cross Shop I think
she herself nearer realized than did any other just how far-reaching would
be its scope, for her hope even then was for a nation-wide emulation of
the Red Cross Shop. The plan, as it is now in force, was evolved
from a before-the-war idea of Mrs. Banning for the establishment of
an organization which should carry on 'relief work in the various centers
of the United States, under the name of the 'Grey Sisterhood,' and
working hi a manner somewhat similar in plan to that of the 'Misera-
cordia Society" of Italy. It is significant that while Mrs. Banning's
original idea became through her enthusiastic interest a co-operative part
of the Red Cross, that the designating costume worn by the women is a
soft grey gown with white collars, cufifs and apron.
"Briefly outlined by Mrs Banning at the time she first set forth to
Harvey D. Gibson, manager of the American Red Cross, her original
Red Cross Shop plan, the dominating idea was to be one of democracy
and sacrificial giving — of time, of money and of gifts from which benefit
to the Red Cross funds would accrue. With tireless and unstinted
energy the women who have become interested in the project have
given of their time and strength. There are no salaries paid except to
the Japanese boy helpers and the janitor. Through the patriotic gener-
osity of Mrs. J. M. Danziger, the beautiful Canfield home at Eighth and
Alvarado Streets has been turned over to the cause and the commodious
garage converted into headquarters for the shop. Disbursements from
the gross receipts are of infinitesimal amount, practically everything being
donated, even to the postage stamps and stationery, which are personall\
given. Bookkeeping, stenography and publicity are given gratis by women
whose talents are adaptive to such special lines of work, while the many
needs for repair work in the reconstruction of broken furniture, clocks,
toys, the mending of clothing, millinery, etc., are met by patriotic volun-
TTJt'f-t^a,*^
-'^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 17
teers who are happy to give of their time and skill to the worthy cause.
It is this democracy of spirit which illuminntes the success of the shop.
And it is this great conception of sacrifice and giving that has so unified
the women of the city in the one splendid purpose. Many of the girls
who labor in the downtown stores eight hours in the day, six days a
week, have assumed the responsibility of devoting a part of their precious
spare time to the Red Cross Shop work. Nimble finsjers of many an
humble artisan are doing their bit with glad patriotism, and it is by this
means that the expenditures of the shop are kept down to the minimum.
''Merchants of the city have been equally as generous in their co-
operation, this despite the fact that from a purely business standpoint
they might consider the project an infringement upon their own com-
mercial enterprises. Not only are the merchants generously responsive
to the specific calls made upon them, but they have aided immeasurably by
instructing the women workers of the shop in the basic principles of
salesmanship, all of which has been of vast benefit.
"While naturally the credit for the Red Cross Shop plan reflects
directly back upon Mrs. Hancock Banning, whose brilliant and compre-
hensive idea was its origin, yet, with all due modesty, Mrs. Banning
attributes the success of the shop to the wonderful spirit of the women
who are allied in the great work, not only those who are devoting them-
selves to the actual operation of the shop, but to each and every individual
who donates something to the cause, whether it be an article of intrinsic
or sentimental value, talents and artisanship, or just one's time, which
to many men and women involved in the fatiguing struggle for a liveli-
hood is a priceless gift. And those who patronize the shop are like-
wise 'doing their bit' in contributing to the success of the institution.
"Mrs. Hancock Banning as general manager of the Red Cross Shop
has as her 'right hand bower" Airs. J. M. Danziger, assistant manager,
who in addition to the loaning of her home for the duration of the war
has devoted her entire time with unflagging zeal to the work and has
aided in many material ways to the success of the project. Mr. George
Fusenot, assistant shop official, has lent an invaluable aid to the women,
giving of his own experience as former proprietor of the Ville de Paris.
Mrs. R. A. HefTner and Mrs. A. G. Faulkner, secretary and treasurer,
respectively, are fulfilling their executive offices with utmost credit. Mrs.
Charles Jeffras, chairman of the floor committee, who has responsibili-
ties of manifold character, has recently brought into her work a new
and splendid plan — that of enlisting the active interest and co-operation
of the women of the various department stores of the city, each of which
will assume complete charge of a Saturday program at the shop during
the summer months. '
■'Mrs. Edwin R. Collins, aside from her office as director of the
entertainment committee, which involves the work of securing famous
stage and screen stars as participants and staging other crowd-drawing
attractions for the Tea Room, has also undertaken, successfully, the
work of publicity director, w^hich means the daily 'peddling' of shop
news items to the various newspapers for publication.
"Mrs. Clarence Hoblitzelle, chairman of the art department ; Mrs.
H. B. MacBeth, in charge of the automobile service ; Mrs. J. Arthur
Wright, manager of the Tea Room ; Mrs. R. E. Wells, in chai"ge of the
Red Cross Shop l:)ranch at Tenth and Main streets, are all fillins:^ depart-
ments equally as important to the success of the shop as a whole.
18 LOS ANGELES
"The stockroom, occupying a spacious part of the second floor of
the building, is in charge of Mrs. Franklyn Booth, and it is here that
surplus stock is stored, and where all articles upon receipt are sorted
out, priced, and if in unsalable condition are sent out to be repaired,
cleaned and in other manner converted into desirable commodities for
sale.
"Mrs. Jaro von Schmidt is in charge of the children's clothing de-
partment, while the women's apparel is under the jurisdiction of Mrs.
Harry Dana Lombard, and the men's wearing apparel department is
under the direction of Mrs. G. Martyn.
"Mrs. Frank Griffith is at the head of the fancy work committee,
Mrs. Homer Laughlin, Jr., is in charge of the jewelry department, and
Mrs. C. R. Bradford directs the Kinema Tea Room. Jams and jellies
and their allies are in charge of Mrs. S. Dunlop; Mrs. S. J. Meyberg
surpervises the work of the toy department; Mrs. W. A. Foreman has
charge of the uniforms, while Mrs. Hallett Johnson presides over the
shoe department.
"These represent only the larger divisions of the work, each of
which is augmented by many branches and an enthusiastic corps of
workers. The reconstruction bureau, under the management of Mrs.
F. W. Poore, is an important branch of the work ; the outside sewing,
under the direction of Mrs. James; the Lilliputian work shop in charge
of Miss Winifred Ballard ; the art shop under direction of Mrs. Robert
Farquhar — all of these are component parts of the Red Cross Shop.
"This is perhaps an opportune place to touch upon the salvage branch
and to differentiate between this phase of the Red Cross work and that
of the Red Cross Shop. The salvage plan, distinctly separate from the
Red Cross Shop, originated by Mrs. Banning, is accredited to Mrs. Oth-
man Stevens, who conceived the idea of collecting such waste as tinfoil,
old automobile tires, old papers and typewriter metals and marketing
them. As succinctly e.xpressed by a friend the other day, the Red Cross
Shop exemplifies the idea of giving from unwholesome hoarding, of
generosity of spirit, of giving from the sense of wishing to share, of
self-denial and sacrifice. While on the other hand, the salvage idea
educates along the lines of unselfish thrift. Individually it means noth-
ing, but collectively, backed by the Red Cross spirit, it is the source
of an appreciable income.
"From a money-making point of view the Red Cross Shop takes
rank with 'big business,' since within a period of nine months it has
netted a profit of a hundred fifteen thousand dollars, with the prospect
of going over the quarter of a million mark before the close of the
fiscal year. The net receipts for the months of May were $n,355.11,
which against the gross receipts of $12,125.80 gives an idea of the cor-
respondingly small amount disbursed for expenses. The June receipts
mounted even higher, the profits reaching $12,000 for the month^repre-
senting plain, straightforward sales, since there were no entertainments
or special benefit features given during this period.
"It is a colossal enterprise — the Red Cross Shop — and one which
reflects the spirit of the American women — a spirit that arises far above
the pettiness of class distinction and unifies womankind in one great
democratic purpose, the big vital issue of GIVING to relieve the distress
which follows in the wake of this great surging world conflict."
O. W. CHILDS
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 19
OzRO W. Childs. For all its other advantages, Los Angeles is a
real "City of Angels," and famed in every part of the world because of
its semi-tropical environment. Nature endowed it with a semi-tropical
climate, but it was the hand and ingenuity of man that permitted the cli-
mate to grow and produce the fruits and flowers that redeemed an almost
original desert into one of the most picturesque spots on the globe.
These well known historical facts are thus suggested to indicate
more clearly the debt that the modern generation owes to the late Ozro
W. Childs, who by his work and splendid abilities both as a floriculturist
and business man helped lay the foundation of Southern California's won-
derful productiveness of fruits and flowers. He introduced many rare
species of trees and plants, and for years local citizens and tourists found-
in the Childs' farm and nursery one of the chief spots of interest. Those
grounds, much of which has since been covered by the expanding city,
was once a scene of well kept lawns, rare and beautiful trees and flowers,
and, while properly esteemed for their beauty, were really a source of
much of the commercial wealth that Southern California enjoys today.
Ozro W. Childs was one of the earliest American pioneers of Los
Angeles. He was born June 5, 1824, at Sutton, Caledonia County, Ver-
mont, son of Jacob and Sarah (Richardson) Childs. He was a young
man of twenty-six when in 1850 he came west to California, and in No-
vember of the same year located at Los Angeles, at that time a place of
about five thousand inhabitants most of whom were relics of the old
Spanish and Mexican regime. Mr. Childs for many years was a success-
ful hardware merchant and manufacturer, and he was a typical New
England merchant, one who made a success in practically every venture
he undertook. Similar success followed his enterprise as a nurseryman,
and he showed the greatest wisdom and foresight in his varied real
estate improvements.
His wonderful gardens and nurseries had eventually to give way
before the spread of the city and increasing population. In 188^ he
subdivided his farm into city lots, retaining only the grounds immediately
around his home from Main to Hill and 11th to 12th streets, which con-
tinued to reflect the artistic taste of the owner in its fruit and flower
gardens.
Mr. Childs was a trustee of the Los Angeles branch of the Home
Mutual Fire Insurance Company of California, was president of the Los
Angeles Electric Company, was' a director and one of the organizers
of the Farmers and Merchants Bank, and during his time was identified
with a number of the biggest enterprises undertaken in the city. His
liberality was as marked as was his success in business affairs. He was
one of the founders of the University of Southern California, to which
he contributed part of the land. He also gave ten acres as the site of
old St. Vincent's College and that gift more than anything else insured
the permanence of that institution of Catholic education. Los Angeles
people of modern times are familiar with the Childs Opera House, which
he built and opened in 1884 on Main Street between 1st and 2nd streets.
It was one of the largest theaters in the west at the time, had a seating
capacity of about twelve hundred, and even then was engaged by some
dramatic company almost every night in the year. It .is now being
operated as a movie house and is still owned by the Childs' estate.
Ozro W. Childs died April 17, 1890. at the age of sixty-six. In
1860 he married Miss Emeline Huber, a native of Louisville, Kentucky.
They were the parents of six children, five of whom are still living:
20 LOS ANGELES
Ozro W., manager of the O. W. Childs' estate at Los Angeles ; Mrs.
John W. Dwight, of Washington. D. C. ; Mrs. Frank S. Hicks, of Los
Angeles; Mrs. A. W. Redn.an, of Los Angeles, and Mrs. Reynolds, wife
of Col. F. P. Reynolds, of Washington.
Lee Allen Phillips, who became a resident of Los Angeles in
1894, has become known to the public as a very able and successful law-
yer, an organizer and executive in a number of reclamation projects,
active as a banker and business man, and for a number of years as an
official of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company of Cahfornia, one
of the most progressive insurance companies of America and with two
hundred and fifty millio i dollars of insurance in force. Early in 1919
Mr. Phillips succeeded the late Gail Borden Johnson in the office of
vice-president and treasurer.
Mr. Phillips was born at Ashton, Illinois, August 24, 1871, son of
Milton Eaves and Magdelina Phill.ps. His father for many years was
a prominent educator and became well known throughout the central
western states. After many years of earnest and self sacrificing work
there he came to Los Angeles and for four years was dean of the Uni-
versity of Southern California, and finally took the pastorate of a Con-
gregational church at New Haven, Connecticut, where he died in 1909.
Lee Allen Phillips received liis higher education in the University
of Kansas and in DePauw University at Greencastle, Indiana, where he
graduated A. B., in 1892 and then taking the law course received in
18y4 the LL. B. degree and the A. M. decree. He was thereiore a
briefless attorney when he arrived in Los Angeles in the late summer of
that year. Then and ever since Mr. Phillips has been known among his
associates as a man of modest and unpretentious worth, and has won
success on the merit of his work and not by any influences outside his
ewn character. In October, 1894, he began the practice of law in the
office of Cochran & WUliams, the senior member of which firm was
George I. Cochran, now president of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance
Company of California. The firm became Cochran, Williams & Phillips,
and so continued until 1902. In 1907 Mr. Phillips became associate
counsel for the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, and in 1912
was chosen third vice-president in charge of the investments of the
company. In 1919 he was unanimously promoted to vice-president and
treasurer and is still in charge of the company's investments, aggre-
gating over forty-five millions of dollars.
There is usually a fundamental motive and driving force in the
careers of men of large aft'airs. In the case of Mr. Phillips that motive
is discerned through h,s interests in a line of work which has not yet been
described. He has served the Pacific Mutual and many other interests
as a masterful and skillful financier and has done a great work in safe-
guar.!ing and promoting the security and profit of many properties en-
trusted to his care. However, he has been more than a "guardian of
vested interests," and the phase of his career which furnishes him most
intimate satisfaction wns his part in the constructive development of
his home state, through the reclamation of swamp and overflow lands
in the San Joaquin Valley.
From 1902 to 1907, in order to give his personal supervision to
these interests, Mr. Phillips made his home at Stockton. Between the
years of 1902 and 1912 he organized, for the purpose of reclaiming
tracts of land in the delta of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers,
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 21
the following corporations, each for the purpose of reclaiming a given
acre ge : Middle River Farming Company, six thousand acres ; Middle
River Navigation & Canal Company, 6 thousand acres; Rindge Land
& Navigaaon Company, ten thousand acres ; Orwood Land Company,
three thousand acres; Holland Land and Water Company, ten thou-
sand acres ; Empire Navigation Company eight thousand acres ; Equita-
ble Investmant Company, seven thousand acres ; Mandeville Land Com-
pany, seven thousand acres ; Island Land Company, three thousand
eight hundred acres; California Delta Farms, Incorporated, a conaoli-
datiop of the above companies and reclaiming an additional seven
thousand acres ; Bouldin Land Company, seven thousand acres ; Hol-
land Land Company, which was a reorganization of the unsuccessful
Netherlands Farms Company, for the reclamation of twenty-six thou-
sand acres. He also organized the Empire Construction Company,
co!itrolling a fleet of dredgers use in construction of levees for the
purpose of recbmation of various properties.
Mr. Phillips gained his first experience in the development of
agricultural lands through the organization of the Artesian Water
Company and the development of the old Cienega Swamps adjoining
the city of Los Angeles and fronting on West Adams street. Here in
the year 1900 he changed this swamp into a wonderfully productive
area, which up to date is producing a very large proportion of the
fresh vegetables used in Los Angeles. At the same time he developed
what is known as the Artesian Water Company, taking the water
from artesian wells on these lands and conveying it to the dry lands
lying along Washington stre'et between the town of Palms and Santa
Monica.
The total acreage reclaimed under Mr. Phillips' direct supervision
and management, by summing up the above figures, seem to be a hun-
dred thousand eight hundred. Some additional facts should be stated
to indicate what significance this work has had as a factor of California
agricultural production. Until the reclamation work was begim the
properties had been only nominally assessed, and produced nothing
of value. After reclamation, the average assessment rose to seventy-five
dollars an acre, and the value of the land at normal market figures
runs from two hundred fifty to three hundred dollars an acre. More
important still, the production is the largest per acre of the various
crops grown, including potatoes, beans, asparagus, onions, corn, barley
and wheat, of which there is any record over similarly large areas.
Since 1903 two-thirds of all the potatoes grown in the state of Cali-
fornia have been raised on these various properties. In truth, in recent
years there have been many destructive agencies let loose against civili-
zation and the world's prosperity, and it serves a good purpose to con-
trrst these magnificent constructive enterprises that have been carried
out by this Los Angeles lawyer and business man. Mr. Phillips' inter-
est did not end with the completion of the reclamation projects them-
selves but has continued through the practical distribution and settle-
ment of the reclaimed land to actual owners and cultivators. He feels
that the complete fruition of his hopes and plans will only be realized
when this great body of land is not only productive of crops but fur-
nishes homes and hnppy environment to the numerous families which ii
can properly support.
Mr. Phillips is president of the California Delta Farms, Incor-
porated, vice-president of the Bouldin Lan(d Company, president of the
Beverly Hills Corporation, president of the Pecos Valley Investment
22 LOS ANGELES
Company, president of the Central Business Properties, director of the
Los Angeles Trust and Savings Bank, the Security National and Home
Savings Bank.
Only recently through the public press it is learned that Mr. Phil-
lips' ideals in regard to the settling of the Delta lands is about to be
fully consumated, 27,000 acres of the land having been sold to settlers
in the short period of fourteen weeks.
Mr. Phillips has not confined his activities in agricultural develop-
ment to the state of California, but under the name of the Pecos Valley
Investment Company has developed 3,400 acres of land in the Pecos Val-
ley, New Mexico, which land was taken from the desert and by means of
wells and pumping plants has been converted into large alfalfa fields and
apple orchards, 700 acres of this property being put to the latter use.
Particularly in recent years Mr. Phillips has been active in in-
vestments and real estate in Los Angeles, and has done much to aid
the development of the newer section of the business district.
He is at present actively engaged in perfecting plans for a new
twelve-story office building to be erected by the Pacific Mutual Life
Insurance Company, and also plans for a new fireproof building to
be built on the corner of Sixth and Olive streets, this latter building to
be owned by the Central Business Properties, Inc.
He was a member of the Los Angeles Library Board from 1900
to 1902, also of the State Normal School Board from 1900 to 1902.
During the war he was chairman of Exemption Board No. 9 for the
City of Los Angeles. Mr. Phillips is a 'republican, a member of the
Phi Gamma Delta and Delta Chi fraternities, the California Club, Bo-
hemian Club of San Francisco, Yosemite Club, of Stockton, Los Angeles
Athletic Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Midwick Country Club,
Brentwood Country Club, and Los Angeles Press Club. He is a member
of the Congregational church.
December 19, 1895, at Winfield, Kansas, Mr. Phillips married
Catherine Louise Coffin, daughter of Tristram Sanborn and Susan Wink-
ler Coffin. To their marriage were born two daughters, Lucile Gertrude
and Katharine Louise. Lucile is the wife of Dr. Wayland A. Mor-
rison.
Russell Judson W.vters. Among the thousands of men who have
sought the mild and beneficent climate of Southern California as a
restorative and ideal condition in which to live, and among the many
who transferred and projected their former business and professional in-
terests to this state, probably none made his activities and influence more
thoroughly constructive in every sense than the late Russell Judson
Waters. One achievement alone, summed up in the phrase, "father of
Redlands," would be sufficient to satisfy the ambitions of a more than
average man. However, Mr. Waters, who lived in Southern California
from 1886 until his death in 1911, was identified with a great number of
commercial organizations, not only in Redlands, but in all the territory
comprised in Greater Los Angeles, and every one of these enterprises
was indebted to him for many of the primary sources of their success,
.md prosperity.
Of New England ancestry, a son of Luther and Mary (Knowlton)
Waters, Russell Judson Waters was born at Halifax, Vermont, June 6,
1843, being the youngest in a family of thirteen, eight daughters and
two sons reaching mature years. When he was four years old his father
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 23
died. His mother then removed to Coleraiii, Franklin county, Massa-
chusetts, and at the age of eight years the boy was put in a cotton mill
to contribute to the necessities of a large and impoverished household.
He worked there two years at a dollar and a quarter a week. As there
were no child labor laws to violate, the work violated nature's law, and
he had to leave the mill, and was next put to work on a farm at Deer-
field, Massachusetts, where he quickly regained his vigor. During the
two years on the farm he managed to attend a few brief terms of public
school. This schooling was important, because it instilled in him an
ambition for more knowledge, and he never ceased to be a student the
rest of his Hfe. He studied at home and at every leisure opportunity,
and earned and paid for all his higher education. Then he went to work
in a cutlery factory at Deerfield, working as a machine operator. The
family in the meantime had located at Richville, New York, whither he
removed, and then resumed employment on a farm at sixty cents a day.
During the winter he chopped wood at fifty cents a cord. It was this
outdoor life which developed the splendid physique enabling him to apply
his mental and physical energies without rest to study and work for
many years. Going back to Massachusetts, he learned the machinists'
trade, taught two terms of school, and eventually completed his studies
at Franklin Institute. He graduated at the age of twenty-four and was
at once offered and accepted the position of professor of Latin and mathe-
matics in Franklin Institute. He remained there one year. In 1868 he
removed to Chicago and took up the study of law with such diligence
that he was admitted to the Illinois bar after two years. He practiced
law in Chicago until 1886. He made a name and reputation as a lawyer
in that city, and it was only as a result of ill health that he gave up his
profitable business as a lawyer to come to Southern California. He
was never a member of the California bar.
On coming to California he became associated with the California-
Chicago Colonization Association as chairman and commissioner. In
that capacity he purchased a large tract of land, in the center of which
is the famed city of Redlands, a community which recognizes him as its
founder and upbuilder. He was a resident of Redlands about seven
>ears, and during that time and also afterward no enterprise to promote
its interest was ever calculated complete without his name and influence.
He was attorney for the city one year. It was through his efforts that
the Santa Fe Railroad Company extended its lines from San Bernardino
to Redlands. One of the important features of the city, making it well
known to tourists, was the "kite-shaped track," in the construction of
which he had a leading part. He was also at various times a director
of the Union Bank, the First National Bankthe Crafton Water Com-
pany, the East Redlands Water Company and the Redlands Hotel Com-
pany, which built the Windsor Hotel. He built and operated the Red-
lands Street Railway and was president of the company. He was also
identified with the Bear Valley Irrigation Company as its manager, and
during his administration the stock of the company almost doubled in
value.
When, in 1894, he removed to Los Angeles, his business prestige was
not dwarfed in the larger city. He became widely known as a banker,
was a leading member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, was
a member of the Board of Park Commissioners, and while in no sense
a politician in the ordinary sense of the term, he was prevailed upon by
his friends to become a candidate for Congress from the Sixth District
and was nominated by acclamation at the Congressional Convention, the
24 LOS ANGELES
nominating speech being made by his old time friend, ex-Governor John
L. Bevericlge of Illinois. He carried his district after a vigorous cam-
paign by 3,542 votes. He represented the district in the Fifty-sixth Con-
gress from 1899 to 190L As a member of Congress he proved an ardent
friend of conservation, and introduced measures approved by the South-
ern California Forestry Commission whereby it was made a criminal
offense to leave campfires burning and endanger the public forests. He
also mtroduced a bill appropriatmg over half a million dollars for the
improvement of San Pedro Harbor. He was a defender of the Nicaragua
Canal bill, when that measure was regarded of equal merit with the
Panama project, and was especially defended by the interests of South-
ern California. His influence also secured the order issued by the com-
missioner general of the Land Office suspending the filing of lien scrip
upon land until after a full and complete investigation by special agents
of the department had been made. He also introduced a bill to authorize
the entry and patenting of lands containing petroleum and other mineral
oils under placer mining laws. Shortly before he entered Congress the
first rural mail route had been put in operation, and he did much to ex-
tend the service over the Sixth California District, and also secured the
establishment of eleven additional postoffices.
After his return from Congress he was elected in 1903 president of
the Citizens National Bank of Los Angeles, and the following year be-
came president of the Home Savings Bank.
A short time before his death, Mr. Waters, besides being president
of the Citizens Bank, was president of the Broadway Trust Company
of Los Angeles, of the First National Bank of Alhambra, of the Home
Savings Bank of Los Angeles, the Columbia Commercial Company of
Los Angeles, the California Cattle Company and the San Jacinto Valley
Water Company. He had also been president of the Los Angeles Di-
rectory Company, was president of the Pasadena Consolidated Gas Com-
pany, was a director of the American Savings Bank of Los Angeles,
was president of the Citizens Security Company, treasurer of the Equit-
able Security Company, treasurer of the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad,
a director of the Citizens National Bank of Redlands, treasurer of the
Continental Life Insurance Company of Salt Lake City, and president
of the Bay Island Club of Newport.
It was through these various activities and institutions that he de-
veloped his business reputation and his prestige as a man of affairs. Dur-
ing the years of his early practice as a lawyer in Chicago he had also
used his pen as a contributor to newspapers and magazines. He also
began his first book in Chicago, entitled "Lyric Echoes." In California
he became author of a dozen good short stories, and less than a year
before his death published a California novel, "El Estranjero," which
was one of the best sellers of the holiday books. The dominating in-
terests of his life were practical business, literature and home affections.
He never belonged to clubs or lodges, and though a lover of the country,
was neither a hunter nor fisherman. His country place in the foothills
at Azusa consisted of a fine lodge and a quarter of a section of land, in
the improvement of which he was never wearied. His city home was
at 900 West Adams street, Los Angeles, where the peaceful end came to
his life and activities on September 25, 1911, at the age of sixty-eight.
His wife had died at the Los Angeles city home February 5, 1903.
Her maiden name was Adelaide Mary Ballard. She was born at Charle-
mont, Massachusetts, April 16, 1848. They were married November 25,
1869, and as a bride she went to Chicago with her husband. Three of
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 25
their living children were born in Chicago. The children are: Arthur
J., president of the Citizens National Bank of Los Angeles; Mabel, Flor-
ence and Myrtle, all of Los Angeles. Florence is the wife of Eli P. Fay.
Arthur J. Waters, only son of the late Russell Judson Waters,
whose career has been sketched on other pages, has been at different
times associated with many enterprises in Southern California, but for
the most part his business career has been centered in the Citizens Na-
tional Bank, which he entered more than a c|uarter of a century ago as
a messenger boy, and in which he succeeded his father in 1911 as pres-
ident.
The Citizens National Bank is one of the largest financial institutions
of Los Angeles. In 1919 its resources aggregated over twenty-eight mil-
lion dollars. It was established in 1890 at Third and Spring streets, was
subsequently moved to Third and Main street, and with increasing busi-
ness and prestige, it was finally housed in its magnificent new bank and
office building at Fifth a-id Spring streets. The Citizens National Bank
Building, completed in 1914, is a twelve-story structure in the \ery heart
of the financial district. It represents an investment of over two million
dollars.
Arthur J. Waters was born in Chicago, Illinois, March 4. 1871, and
was about fifteen years old when his parents came to Southern Cali-
fornia. He received his early educatioi in the Eastern cities and is a
graduate of the old University of Chicago. He hns been identified with
the Citizens National Bank since 1893, and served it successively as mes-
senger boy, bookkeeper, teller, assistant cashier, cashier and vice pres-
ident.' Owing to the death of his father in 1911, he assumed the pres-
idency. He was recently elected president of the Los Angeles Clearing
House Association.
In 1899 Mr. Waters married Miss Charlotte C. Miller. He is a mem-
ber of the California Club, Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Country Club,
Los Angeles Athletic Club, Automobile Club of Southern California and
is a member of the Masonic Order.
Henry William O'Melveny is one of the oldest active members
of the bar of Los Angeles. Ne-^rly forty y ars in pr ctice, his reputation
has grown with the years, and his standing as a lawyer is second to
none, and his influence as a citizen has always been greater than any
of his individual achievements in the profession, notable though they
have been.
Mr. O'Melveny, to whom there came a specially grateful profes-
sional distinction when he was elected president of the Los Angeles
Bar Association in 1919, was born in Illinois, August 10, 1859, but
came to Los Angeles in childhood with his parents, H. K. S. and
Anna Wilhelmina (Rose) O'Melveny. He acquired a liberal educa-
tion. After graduating from the Los Angeles High School in 1875,
he entered the University of California and completed his law co'rse
in 1879. Upon his admission to practice he at once opened an office
in Los Angeles, where from 1883 to 1885 he served as deputy under
Stephen M. White, then district attorney. In the latter year he formed
a partnership with J. A. Graves under the firm name of Graves &
O'Melveny. The name of the firm was changed in 1888 to Graves,
O'Melveny & Shankland. Through association with Henry J. Stev-
ens in 1906, the firm of O'Melveny & Stevens was established, and
this in turn by the addition of Mr. Millikin in 1907 expanded into
the present co-partnership of O'Melveny, Stevens & Millikin.
26 LOS ANGELES
For thirty years Mr. O'Melveny has been a moving force in the
professional history of Los Angeles, and his vigorous mind has been
felt continually as an important factor in legal circles. He has been
prominent both as a counsellor and as an advocate, and his opinions
have acquired great weight not only in the courts but among the pro-
fession generally. His suggestions are received with deference since
they are based on long and mature experience and a comprehensive
knowledge of the law.
Mr. O'Melveny has many business interests, being a director of
the Azusa Ice & Cold Storage Company, Farmers & Merchants Na-
tional Bank, the Security Trust & Savings Bank of Los Angeles, Los
Angeles Trust & Savings Bank, Title Insurance & Trust Company,
Dominguez Water Company, Dominguez Estate Company and other
well known business or financial concerns of southern California.
Along lines of civic service he has been for two terms a member of the
Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles Public Library, and also acted
as a member of the Civil Service Commission and as a member of the
Board of Park Commissioners. He is a member of the Sunset Club,
California Club, and Los Angeles Country Club. He married at Los
Angeles in 1887 Marie Antionette Schilling, of Los Angeles.
MiLo S. B.MvER, founder of the Baker Iron Works of Los Angeles,
was a conspicuous character in the life of the Far West and also in the
state of Michigan. M'here he lived until permanently settling at Los
Angeles in 1874.
He was born in Genesee county. New York, March 20, 1828, mem-
ber of a prominent New England family. His great-grandfather, Re-
member Baker, was a relative of Ethan Allen, the celebrated leader of
the Mountain Brigade in the Revolutionary war, and was captain of a
company when General Allen stormed and captured Fort Ticonderoga,
one of the outstanding exploits of the Revolution. This patriot soon
after those exploits was captured by the Indians and murdered by them,
and is said to have been the first officer killed in the American Revolu-
tion. Capt. Remember Baker was one of the original surveyors of New
Hampshire, and was succeeded in the profession of surveying by his son
Ozi, who established the boundary lines between the states of New York
and Vermont. Ozi in turn was assisted in surveying by his son. Remem-
ber Baker, the latter being the father of Milo S. Baker. Remember
Baker was also a sea captain and had the distinction of piloting the
Robert Fulton on its first trip up the Hudson in 1807. He served as ;i
soldier in the War of 1812 with a captain's commission. He had the
pioneer instinct and in 1836 went to the wilds of Michigan, settling
where the State Capitol now stands at Lansing. He died in that state
about 1845.
Milo S. Baker grew up on the Michigan frontier, and at the death
of his father, though only eighteen years of age, took charge of the
business. In March, 1815, he and four companions set out for Cali-
fornia, traveling overland and encountering many hardships and dangers.
Milo Baker had many experiences in the mining district of California,
where he remained about three years and where he was prosperous
probably beyond the average. He returned to the States by the Panama
route, going on the steamer "Winfield Scott.'.'
On his return to Michigan he took up the business for which he
was best adapted, machinery, and soon had a prosperous foundry and
machine shop at Portland, in Ionia county. In 1860 he was elected a
member of the Michigan Legislature, and both in that capacity and as a
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 27
private citizen he rendered his stanchest support to the government at
the outbreak of the Civil war. About that time he sold his business at
Portland and directed a large plant at Lansing, known as Baker's
Eureka Iron Works, manufacturing machinery and architectural iron.
Subsequently he added a flouring mill and saw mill. When they were
burned he rebuilt the mills and also established a planing mill. He built
for his brother, Gen. Lafayette C. Baker, the Lansing House, one of the
largest hotels in Michigan at that time.
Some reference should be made to his brother, Lafayette C. Baker,
who was born in 1826, came West to California in 1853, was prominent
among the Vigilantes in the pioneer days of that city, and at the be-
ginning of the Civil war did some highly important work for the govern-
ment as a Secret Service agent and was soon placed at the head of
the Secret Service Bureau and commissioned colonel and subsequently
brigadier general. When President Lincoln was assassinated he organ-
ized the pursuit of the murdered and was present at his capture and
death. He died in Philadelphia July 2, 1868, about the time of the
publication of his work, "History of the United States Secret Service,"
which settled authoritatively some disputed points of the war.
Milo S. Baker was three times married. His first two wives died
within a year or two after their marriage. January 19, 1863, he mar-
ried Harriet L. Lawrence, daughter of William H. Lawrence, a business
man of Yonkers, New York. She was a niece of Capt. James Lawrence,
whose record figures so prominently in the early history of the American
Navy, first as commander of the "Hornet," and later as commander of
the frigate "Chesapeake" in its engagement with the "Shannon." Every
American schoolboy knows his famous exhortation, as he fell mortally
wounded, "Dont give up the ship."
Being in poor health, Milo S. Baker sold his Michigan business a
few years after the war, and on January 1, 1874, arrived in Los Angeles,
where he lived a few months. For about one year he lived at Indiana
Colony (now Pasadena), then moved his family to Santa Monica. Be-
ing restored to health, he built in 1877 a foundry and machine shop on
Spring street, opposite the old Court Ho\ise. A small machine shop
had been established there by a Frenchman in 1872. The business was
so small that Mr. Baker was able to fill all orders without any assistance
except an extra man in busy seasons. But tinder his enterprising direc-
tion the establishment grew and prospered and moved to larger quarters
at Second and Main streets, and in 1886 the Baker Iron Works was
incorporated and a new plant built on Buena Vista Street, now North
Broadway, and College street. At the present time seven acres arc
occupied by the different departments and buildings. The develop-
ment of such an industry proves the possibilities of Los Angeles for
manufacturing in every line, since the results achieved by the Baker
Company might be duplicated by other men of equal capability and
efficiency. The product of the Baker Iron Works through forty years
has met every test of efficiency and quality. This company furnished the
structural iron and steel work for such well-known buildings as the
Security Bank, Union Trust, Douglas, Johnson, Grosse and Auditorium
Buildings, the VanNuys and Alexandria Hotels and hundreds of others.
When Milo S. Baker brought his wife and children to Los Angeles
county in 1873 they were the first outside family to join the Indiana
colony now known as Pasadena, a settlement that hitherto had been
composed of seventeen families, all from the state of Indiana.
Milo S. Baker continued actively as president of the Baker Iron
28 LOS ANGELES
Works until his death in 1894. He and his wife had two sons and a
daughter, Fred L., now president of the Baker Iron Works; Milo A.,
vice-president, who has also been identified with the business for many
years, and Belle.
Feed Lawrence Baker. Any of half a dozen organizations or
institutions in Southern California might be taken as a text to illustrate
the enterprise and influence of Fred Lawrence Baker as a Los Angeles
citizen. However, his primary and longest continued work has ueen
with the Baker Iron Works, the first and greatest industry of its kind
in California. The career of its founder, the late Milo S. Baker, has
been sketched on preceding pag.s.
Fred Lawrence Baker is a son of Milo S. Baker and was born at
Lansing, Michigan, February 10, 1865. Though of a notable family in
the history of Michigan and the American nation, Fred Lawrence Baker
as a result of several circumstances never attended school more than six
months altogether. His individuality has been such that apparently he
has needed none of the conventional sources of education and training,
and has hewed out his own way and has always dominated his circum-
stances.
As a result of the death of his father in 1894, the responsibilities
of the management of the great Baker Iron Works fell upon him. He
had grown up in the atmosphere of these works and was well qualified ro
make of them an even greater industry than his father had ever antici-
pated. Of this corporation, whose products are distributed throughout
California, Arizona and Northern Mexico, Mr. Baker has for a number
of years been president, while his brother, Milo A., is vice president ; W.
C. Kennedy is secretary, Harry S. Hitchcock, treasurer, and J. Foster
Rhodes a director.
The Baker Iron Works, during the early years of Milo Baker's
ownership known as the City Foundry, did a great amount of business
in providing building material for construction, irrigation and agricul-
tural enterprises thirty years or more ago. Incorporated under the
present title in 1886, the Baker Iron Works has in all the years b en
relied upon for an output used in nearly all the larger enterprises in the
mining and irrigation fields in the Southwest. The business, now located
in a pknt covering an area of more th^n ten acres, provides structural
steel for every class of buildings, designs and manufactures passenger
and freight elevators, dumb elevators, builds sterm boilers, manufactures
machinery of every description for mining and petroleum operators, and
provid.s water pipe for city and irrigating corporations. The construc-
tion of powerful traveling cranes, steam and electric hoists, and the
manufacture of gas plants are among other special features of the Baker
Iron Works product. When this country became involved in the great
European war the Baker Iron Works was among the first of the patriotic
industrial corporations to offer to provide steel ships for the United
States government. Mr. Baker helped organize the Los Angeles Ship-
building and Dry Dock Company, and with remTkable speed built a
big plant at the harbor and secured contracts with the government for
the construction of steel ships valued at about seventy million dollars.
Throughout the war period practically the entire organization of the
Baker Iroi Works was enlisted in some phase of government service.
Mr. Baker is vice-president and treasurer of the Pacific Gasoline
Company, a director of the Sierra Vista Ranch Company, treasurer and
director of the Brea Gasoline Company, director and treasurer of the
Harbor View Company, vice president of the Wallace Refineries, and
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 29
president and treasurer of the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock
Company, president now and has been for the past twelve years of the
Automobile Club of Southern California, is president of the Insurance
Exchange of the Automobile Club, is a charter member of the Chamber
of Commerce, a member of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Associa-
tion.
flis influence hae been imparted to much of the very spirit and life
of l-os Angeles industry and also to broader movements of civic progress.
From 1904 to 1913 he was president of the Founders' and Employers'
Associ-t'on, an organization standing for the open shop in Los Angeles.
From 1892 to 1896 he represented the Second Ward in the City Council.
For four years he was a member of the Board of Water Commissioners,
one of his fellow commissioners being William Mulholland. That was
a service made conspicuous in the history of Southern California by
reason of the fact that Mr. Baker was one of the primary leaders in
advocating and consummating the plan for the construction of the
twenty-seven million dollar aqueduct by which Los Angeles is now
supplied with an inexhaustible supply of pure water. During one term
as vice-president and one term as president of the Merchants' and
Manufacturers' Association, he made his chief ambition the upbuilding
of Los Angeles.
No public cause makes a stronger appeal to him than that of good
roads. The splendid highways stretching out in every direction from
Los Angeles might be considered a monument to Mr. Baker and some
of his associates more prominent in their construction. Much influence
in behalf of good roads has been rendered through the Automobile Club
of Southern California. Mr. Baker is director of the California Club,
a member of the Los Angeles Country Club, the Midwick Country Club
and Los Angeles Athletic Club.
November 28, 1887, Mr. Baker married Miss Lillian May Todd,
daughter of Oscar Todd of Los Angeles. They have three children:
Earlda A., wife of W. J. Wallace; Marjorie M., Mrs. Guy C. Boynton,
and Lawrence Todd Baker.
MiLo A. Baker, whose active business connection in Los Angeles
for over thirty years has been with the Baker Iron Works, is a son of
the late Milo S. Baker and was born at Lansing, Michigan, March 14,
1868, being about six years of age when brought to Los Angeles.
He attended the grammar and high schools of California and at the
age of fifteen went to work in his father's iron foundry as an assistant.
During the next four or five years he worked in every department and
acquired a thorough knowledge of every branch of the industry. In
1895, the year after his father's death, he was made vice-president and
superintendent, the office he holds today.
Mr. Baker is a republican, a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a
member of the Royal Arcanum, Sons of the American Revolution, life
member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and a member of the Los
Angeles Country Club and California Club.
Isidore Bernard Dockweiler, a member of the Board of United
States Indian Commissioners and officially identified with a number of
public institutions in California, has been a Los Angeles lawj'er for
thirty years and is a native son of that city.
He was born December 28, 1867, son of Henry and Margaretha
(Sugg) Dockweiler. His father was bom in the Rhine Phalz, then be-
longing to Bavaria, and his mother in Alsace.
30 LOS ANGELES
Mr. Dockweiler acquired a liberal education. He received his com-
mercial diploma from St. Vincent's College at Los Angeles in 1883, and
during the next two years worked as a bookkeeper. In 1887 he was
graduated A. B. from St. Vincent's, and the same institution conferred
upon him the Master of Arts degree in 1889, and further honored him
in 1905 with the degree LL. M. and in 191 1 LL. D.
During 1887-88 Mr. Dockweiler worked as a surve3'or and qualified
for the bar with Anderson, Fitzgerald & Anderson at Los Angeles. He
was admitted to the California bar in 1889 and later to the h'ederal
Courts of California and the United States Supreme Court. He is also
a member of the bars of Arizona and Nevada.
Mr. Dockweiler has long been recognized as a leader in the demo-
cratic party in California. He is a member of the Democratic National
Committee, 1916-20, and on its executive committee. He was a candi-
date for lieutenant governor on the democratic ticket in 1902, and in
1908 was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention at Den-
ver. By appointment from President Wilson he has served as a mem-
ber of the Board of United States Indian, Commissioners since Decem-
ber 22, 1913. Mr. Dockweiler has a large practice and is a member
of the firm of Dockweiler & Mott.
He has been a trustee of St. Vincent's College since October 1, 1890.
In December, 1898, he was commissioned a trustee of the State Normal
School at San Diego, and still fills that office. From 1897 to 1911, with
the exception of one term, he was a director of the Los Angeles Public
Library and part of the time president of the board. Mr. Dockweiler is
a member of the Los Angeles County, California, and American Bar
Associations, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the California,
Gamut, Los Angeles Country and Newman Clubs, and is affiliated with
the Knights of Columbus, Young Men's Institute, Native Sons of the
Golden \A'est and the Elks. He is a member of the Catholic church.
June 30, 1891, he married Miss Gertrude Reeve at San Francisco They
have eleven children.
William Charles Bluett. A business man of enterprise and
energy, yet of caution and good judgment, was the late William Charles
Bluett, who for many years was prominent in commercial life at Los
AngeLs, to which city he came when it was almost in its infancy. Mr.
Bluett was born at Dublin, Ireland, but was brought to the United States
in childhood. He was educated here and very early disclosed a marked
aptitude for business.
It was inxthe city of Chicago, that Mr. Bluett built up his first
great clothing business, and there, in 1871, he, like thousands of others,
saw his possessions reduced to ashes in the great fire. In 1883, hav-
ing assisted in the commercial rebuilding of Chicago, he determined to
take advantage of the genial climate of Southern California and came to
Los Angeles, which remained his home until his death on October 28,
1906. From 1883 until 1885 he was associated in business as the senior
partner in the firm of Bluett, Daly and Sullivan, the location of the
firm's clothing store being in the old Nadeau Hotel block. In 1885,
when the location was changed the business was conducted on the
corner of First and Spring streets, the firm name becoming Bluett &
Sullivan. In 1889 the firm of Mullen & Bluett entered upon its long
and prosperous business career, its history being a part of the history
of Los Angeles. Mr. Bluett retired from the firm in March, 1905. He
was always credited with unusual business sagacity, and he carried his
efficiency into public affairs, becoming a valued and trustworthy citizen.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 31
Mr. Bluett married Miss Elizabetii Mulvey, wiio died in the old
family home on Union avenue, between Seventh and Eighth streets,
in February, 1908. The only survivor is the one daughter, Miss Alice
Bluett, who remembers many interesting things about the Los Angeles
of her girlhood. She recalls that their first home was next to the old
Bradley home on Fourth street. An old restaurant, where the lamily
sometimes went to dine, bore the pretentious name of Delmonico. It was
situated next door to a blacksmith shop and separated from the same
by a curtain. On one occasion, caught in a storm, she had difficulty in
wading through the flood, for the old horse cars only operated as far
as Sixth and Pearl street, now Figueroa.
Mr. Bluett was a faithful member of the Catholic Church. Al-
though inclined to adopt the principles of the republican party, he never
entirely identified himself with it. Being an excellent judge of men,
he frequently supported for offices of political importance, those who
met with the approval of his own conscience. He was one of the char-
ter members of the California Club, a member of the Newman Club and
of the National Irrigation Association, belonged to the Los Angeles
Board of Trade and was a director and president of the Chamber of
Commerce.
Joseph F. Sartoei is president and one of the founders of the
Security Trust and Savings Bank, which with nearly four millions of
capital and surplus, and with total resources of nearly sixty millions,
has been for more than a decade the largest depository of money in
the southwest, and one of the notably large banks of the United States.
The growth of the bank has been contemporaneous with the growth
and development of Los Angeles and southern California.
Joseph F, Sartori was born at Cedar Falls, Iowa, Christmas day,
1858, son of Joseph and Theresa (Wangler) Sartori. The young man
grew up in eastern Iowa at a time when that part of the country was
advancing in a period of very rapid but none the less substantial growth.
He was liberally educated, in Iowa Cornell College and abroad, studied
law at Ann Arbor, and practiced for a time in the office of Leslie M.
Shaw, who later became a leading lawyer-banker of Iowa, and secretary
of the treasury of the United States. From 1882 to 1887 Mr. Sartori
practiced law with Congressman I. S. Struble as a partner. In June,
1886, at LeMars, Iowa, he married Miss Margaret Rishel.
In March, 1887, Mr. and Mrs. Sartori arrived in southern Cali-
fornia, seeking a home in the then village of Monrovia. He brought
to the new environment a sound knowledge of real values, and an ap-
preciation of the great future which the very obvious advantages and
resources of southern California offered. He joined heartily in the
general uplxiilding movement. Monrovia needed a bank, so the First
National Bank of Monrovia was organized, with Mr. Sartori as cashier,
of which institution he is still a vice-president. In 1889 the superior
advantages of Los Angeles had impressed themselves upon him, and
he removed to this city, and was the principal factor in the founding of
the Security Savings Bank, of which he became cashier. In 1895 he
became its president.
Mr. Sartori has been a member of the Legislative Committee of
the California Bankers' Association since its inception, and has taken
a prominent part in the drafting of the California Bank Act. In the
year 1914 he was president of the Savings Bank Section of the Amer-
ican Bankers' Association, and since 1913 has been a member of the
Currency Commission of that association.
32 LOS ANGELES
Mr. Sartori is a director of the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry
Dock Lompany. He is president of the Los Angeles Country Club, a
former president of the California Club, and a member of the Jonathan,
Midwick, Crags and Los Angeles Athletic Clubs.
Samuel M. Haskins, whose work as a lawyer has brought him spe-
cial prestige in corporation practice, is an old-time Calitorniau, and
has seen Los Angeles grow from a small city when it was almost pos-
sible for one man to know every person of consequence within its
boundaries.
Mr. Haskins was born at Salt Lake City January 20, 1872, and is
a son of Thomas Wilson and Frances Emily (Austin) Haskins. His
father, a distinguished Episcopalian minister, well known in southern
California, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, July 5, 1837. He at-
tended St. Stephen's College near Albany, New York, and after gradu-
ating became assistant to his uncle. Rev. Samuel Moody Haskins. This
uncle was for si.xty-seven years pastor of St. Mark's Episcopal Church
in Brooklyn, New York, at Bedford street and Fourth avenue. He
took charge of that church when the edifice was surrounded by a grain
field. After his death the church was torn down and the east pier of
" one of the East River bridges was erected on the site.
The late Thomas Wilson Haskins did a great deal of missionary
work in the far west in the Episcopal church in the early days. In 1866
he, was stationed at Salt Lake City as a missionary and also as chaplain
of Fort Douglas. In 1873 he took his family east to St. Albans, Ver-
mont, where he was pastor of a church, and later filled numerous pulpits
in Connecticut and Illinois. In 1885 he removed to Tucson, Arizona,
for his health, becoming pastor of a local church, and in the spring of
1887 came to Los Angeles as assistant rector of St. Paul's Church. In
1888 he founded Christ Episcopal Church and was its rector until he
retired in 1892, after an active service of over thirty years. He died in
1895. He was gifted as a writer as well as a minister and contributed
to a number of publications. He married Frances Emily Austin at
Brooklyn, New York, January 21, 1869. Of their eleven children three
are now living. The younger daughter is the wife of W. H. Joyce, for-
merly manager of the Globe Mills at Los Angeles and now president of
the Federal Land Bank at Berkeley, California. The older daughter is
Mrs. Almeric Coxhead, wife of a San Francisco architect.
Samuel M. Haskins spent his early life in eastern states. He came
to Los Angeles in 1887, and in 1889 graduated from the Los Angeles
High School. He then entered the University of California, receiving
his A. B. degree in 1893. Mr. Haskins studied law in the office of
Thomas L. Winder and was admitted to the bar in 1895. He left Mr.
Winder in 1896 and served six years as clerk of the City Council. He
then became associated with Dunn & Crutcher, lawyers, and in 1908
was made a partner, the firm in the meantime having become Bicknell,
Gibson, Trask, Dunn & Crutcher. For many years Mr. Haskins has
specialized in corporation law.
He is a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon college fraternity,
the California Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Los Angeles Country
Club, Midwick Country Club, the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, and
is a member of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and
Colonial Wars. His father was a direct descendant of John Haskins
of Boston, one of whose daughters was the mother of Ralph Waldo
Emerson. Mr. Haskins is a democrat in politics and a member of the
Episcopal church.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 33
April 15, 1902, at Los Angeles, he married Elisa ijonsall. Her
father, William H. Bonsall, was an old settler in Los Angeles and at
one time president of the City Council. The three children of Mr. and
Mrs. Haskins are Samuel M., Jr., Ijorn in 1905, a student in the public
schools; Barbara llonsall, born in 1910, attending Miss Reilly's School
for Girls; and Janet, born in 1914.
Albert C. M.vrtin. Nowhere in the world has the profession of
architecture such magnificent opportunities as in southern California. It
is not strange that some of the most eminent members of that profession
have done their work here, and concerning the standing of Albert C. Mar-
tin as an architect, it is only necessary, therefore, to refer to some of the
better known examples of construction to which he has furnished his
skill and service.
Perhaps the most widely appreciated of these buildings is known
as the Edison Building, the home of Grauman's Million Dollar Theater,
at Third and Broadway. This building rises 150 feet above the level
of the street, twelve stories high, is imposing in size and impressive by
the beauty of its arrangements and form. It exemplifies in a remark-
able manner the most distinctive ideals and ideas of the architectural
profession as applied to theater and business architecture. It is a
combination office and theater building and embodies several new and
novel features of construction, especially the use of a concrete arch
instead of the usual steel truss for the support of the balcony.
While a large part of the Los Angeles public has learned to ap-
preciate and admire this conspicuous building, Mr. Martin's further
work may be witnessed in the Higgins Building, ten stories, at Second
and Main streets ; the Ventura County Court House, the Catholic Chapel
at Camarillo, the Loyola College Building, the Catholic Church at Bis-
bee, Arizona, regarded as one of the finest examples of church archi-
tecture in the west, while of minor importance, though representing
an enormous total in aggregate, Mr. Martin's work as architect is
exemplified in four hundred buildings in and around Los Angeles,
comprising factories, warehouses, churches and schools.
Mr. Martin was born at LaSalle, Illinois, September 16, 1879, a
son of John and Margaret (Carey) Martin. He attended the Brothers
of Mary Academy at LaSalle, from which he graduated in 1895, and
then took his technical work in the University of Illinois, graduating
Bachelor of Science in 1902. After leaving the tmiversity he was in
charge of certain technical departments in the steel mills and shops of
Pennsylvania for the Pennsylvania Railway in the Pittsburgh district
until 1904. Mr. Martin then came to Los Angeles and became asso-
ciated with A. F. Rosenheim in the construction of the H. W. Plellman
P>inlding, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, and the Hamburger
Store Building.
Since 1908 Mr. Martin has been practicmg architecture for him-
self, and has been in a position to render more than the ordinary
services of the architect on account of his extensive experience in
modern construction.
He is a member of the Knights of Columbus, the Newman Club,
Los Angeles Country Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Catholic
Church, and in politics is an independent voter. At Oxnard, California,
in October, 1908, he married Miss Carolyn E. Borchard. Her father,
John Edward Borchard, is one of the oldest living pioneers of Ventura
County. They have six children: Evaline, born in 1909, and a student
34 LOS ANGELES
in a parochial school; Margaret, born in 1911, also in school; Albert
C. Jr., born in 1913; Carolyn, born in 1915; John Edward, born in
1917, and Lucille, bom in 1918.
William George Kerckhoff. At different points in the narrative
and personal history of Southern California the name William G. Kerck-
hoff' appears prominently in connection with the great industrial, par-
ticularly the power, development in California. His associates are
prominent men in the life of Southern California, and Mr. Kerckhoff
is of equal eminence. His services could not be described in full except
through a complete history of half a dozen or more great public utilities,
banking and commercial enterprises that in themselves are of the great-
est significance in Southern California.
Mr. Kerckhoff was born at Terre Haute, Indiana, March 30, 1856,
a son of George and Philippine (Newhart) Kerckhoff. Besides the
public schools of his native city, he attended a gymnasium in Hanover,
Germany, and on returning from abroad went into business with his
father, who conducted a wholesale jobbing saddlery and hardware busi-
ness at Terre Haute. In the fall of 1878 he came to California, and
after a year of travel and investigation located at Los Angeles, vyhich
then contained only ten thousand people. In 1879, with two associates,
he organized the firm, of Jackson, Kerckhoff & Cuzner, which later be-
came the Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill and Lumber Company. This is one
of the largest enterprises of California, having built up through a period
of years a chain of yards and docks along the Southern coast, owning
a fleet of lumber vessels and carrying an immense amount of lumber
and timber products from the Northwestern states to Los Angeles
harbor.
Mr. Kerckhoff had established an enviable fame as a Western lum-
ber man before he became interested in electric power development. In
1897 he was associated with A. C. Balch in organizing the San Gabriel
Electric Company. The history of this concern has been referred to
elsewhere as the pioneer in Southern California water power develop-
ment for electrical purposes. Out of it has grown one of the greatest
light and power systems in the world, the Pacific Light and Power Cor-
poration, of which Mr. Kerckhoff was president until 1913.
He is also actively identified with the San Joaquin Light and Power
Corporation and the Southern California Gas Company as president,
and the imposing scope of his influence is broadened by other official
connections with the Midway Gas Company, Midland Counties Public
Service Corporation, San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad,
the Farmers and Merchants National Bank and the First National Bank
of Kerman, the Fresno Farms Company and the South Coast Land
Company. He is also very largely interested in realty-improved property
in Los Angeles, including the Kerckhoff Building, among the verv l^rge
office buildings, and has large holdings of acreage both in Southern
California and also in the San Joaquin Valley.
Mr. Kerckhoff served by appointment of the governor two terms
as a commissioner to manage the Yosemite National Park. He is a
member of the Bohemian and Pacific Union Clubs of San Francisco,
Los Angeles Country and California Clubs of Los Angeles and the
Bolsa Chica Gun Club.
November 13, 1883, at Terre Haute, Indiana, he married Louise
Eshman. Their two daughters are Gertrude and Marion.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 35
John Henry Quinton, senior member of Quinton, Code & Hill,
consulting engineers at Los Angeles, is one of the highest engineering
authorities in the West, where he has lived for over forty years, and
for a long period was associated as a consulting engineer with many
of the monumental enterprises undertaken by the Government Reclama-
tion Service.
He was born at Enniskillen, Ireland, October 19, 1850, son of
William and Anne (Thompson) Quinton. From 1860 to 1866 he at-
tended Portora Royal School at Enniskillen, from 1866 to 1868 was in
Queen's College at Belfast, and from 1868 tq 1871 in Queen's College
at Galway. He received his A. B. degree from Queen's University of
Ireland in 1871, and his B. E. degree in 1872. His first practical ex-
perience was six months spent as leveler rai ccmstruct^n of a railway
in Sligo, Ireland. lU198c>
Mr. Quinton came to the United States in 1873 and for tiiree
months worked as a leveler on the Fresno River Canal in California.
From 1874 to June, 1876, he was in the employ of the Southern Pacific
Railway, and in 1877 did surveying and leveling in the San Joaquin
Valley. In 1878-80 he was assistant engineer in charge of location and
construction on the South Pacific Coast Railway; 1880 was in charge
of construction of eighty miles of the Oregonian Railway; 1881-84 was
assistant engineer, principal assistant engineer and acting chief engineer
of the Pacific Branch of the Mexican Central Railway ; during 1884-88
was in private practice as a civil and hydraulic engineer in southern
California : in 1888-89 was assistant engineer in War Department at
Portland, Oregon; 1890-92 was field engineer for Hoffman & Bates,
bridge builders of Portland, and 1892-93 was principal assistant en-
gineer in charge of location and construction of the Santa Ana Canal
in California.
In 1894 Mr. Quinton engaged in private practice as a consulting
engineer at Los Angeles, continuing until 1897. In 1898 he was
engineer in charge of construction of the San Gabriel Power Canal,
including thirty-six tunnels and other works. In 1899-1900 he was
deputy city engineer in charge of construction of Third street and
Broadway tunnels at Los Angeles, and from 1900 to 1902 was again
in private practice. During the following year he was consulting en-
gineer with the United States Geological Survey.
From 1903 to 1915 Mr. Quinton was consulting or supervising
engineer with the United States Reclamation Service, and also con-
sulting engineer for the United States Indian Service. He filled the
office of consulting engineer until June 15, 1908, when he was appointed
supervising engineer on a yearly salary to act as consulting engineer
when called upon, and later at his own request he had the terms of his
service changed to a per diem basis. In this capacity he has been con-
nected with some of the greatest irrigation projects in the west. He
was consulting engineer for the Truckee Carson project in Nevada,
making all the original plans, including the concrete dam in the Truckee
River, and having general supervision of the project. For three years
he had supervision of the Uncompahgre project in Colorado, including
the six-mile Gunnison tunnel. At the same time he had supervision
of the Strawberry project in Utah. For a time he had supervision of
the Pathfinder Dam and Interstate Canal in Nebraska, both parts of
the North Platte project. He made the original design for the dam,
one of the two highest concrete arch dams in the world, and was one
of the board of consulting engineers who passed upon the feasibility
36 LOS ANGELES
and practicability of the scheme. He also made all the plans for struc-
tures on the Minidoka project in Idaho, including the great dam in
Snake River at Minidoka. He was one of the board of consulting
engineers who passed upon plans for the Laguna Dam in the Colorado
River, part of the Yuma project, this being one of the great diversion
weir dams of the world, and the only one of its kind in the United
States. He made a four months' study and elaborate report on the
best method of reclaiming Klamath marshes in Oregon-California. For
a time he had charge of the Belle Fourche projects in South Dakota,
including probably the highest earthen dam in the world, and made
designs for the concrete diversion dam in the Belle Fourche River. He
was one of the board who passed upon the feasibility of the Shoshone
project in Wyoming, making the original plan for the Shoshone Dam,
325 feet high from the foundation, the highest purely concrete arch
dam in the world.
Other projects upon which he was consulted were the Orland
project in California, Grand Valley project in Colorado, Huntly project
in Montana, Milk River project in Montana, Lower Yellowstone project
in Montana and North Dakota, Hondo project in Mexico. For the
United States Indian Service he drew up the plans for the reclamation
of a large acreage of the Upper Klamath marshes in Oregon.
Mr. Quinton remained as consulting engineer with the Reclama-
tion Service until May 12, 1915, when he resigned at the request of the
director in order to comply with the new method of administration
adopted for that service. He was also employed by the state of Colo-
rado to report upon the Piute Reservoir and Dam on the Sevier River,
and was employed to make a report and give an opinion upon the
plans for a high masonry dam by the Twin Falls Salmon River Land
and Water Company of Idaho. From 1911 to 1914 he was also con-
sulting engineer for the Casa Grande Reclamation project, the River-
side Groves and Water Company, the Southwestern Fruit and Irriga-
tion Company, in Arizona ; the Mocking Bird Dam at Arlington Heights,
Riverside, California : the San Joaquin Valley farm lands in Fresno
County ; made a report for the city of Los Angeles on the distribution
of surplus water of the aqueduct, and has had other professional en-
gagements involving- surveys, reports and investigations on projects
from Western Canada to South America. Altogether his professional
services have been acquired in the reclamation of several millions of
acres of land in the west.
Mr. Quinton is a member of the xVmerican Society of Civil En-
gineers, the Engineers' and Architects' Association of Southern Cali-
fornia. He is a republican in politics and a member of the Masonic
Order.
At Los Angeles, May 22, 1888. Mr. Quinton married Miss Sophia
Inglis Donnell.
William FIenry Code is the second member of the widely known
firm of consulting engineers, Quinton, Code & Hill, with offices in the
Hollingsworth Building, Since 1890 his work as an engineer has been
in the mountain states and on the Pacific Coast, involving connection
with some of the greatest projects under the auspices of the govern-
ment or private corporations.
Mr. Code was born at Saginaw, Michigan, November 22, 1865, a
.son of James and Elizabeth Code. He attended the public schools of
Sa.ginaw and Harrisville, Michigan, and received his degree Bachelor
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 17
of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan. Be-
fore going to college and during college vacations he spent several years
as rod man, instrument man and inspector of street paving and sewers.
In 1890-91 Mr. Code was assistant engineer of the Union Pacific
Railroad at Cheyenne, Wyoming, in charge of work in connection with
expenditures approximating a million dollars for railroad shops, yard
system, etc. In 1891-92 he was assistant state engineer of Wyoming
under Ehvood Mead.
From 1893 to 1902 Mr. Code was chief engineer for the Con-
solidated Canal System in the Salt River Valley of Arizona, a large and
comprehensive project covering a considerable portion of the irrigated
section in that valley. During 1901-02 Mr. Code was also special agent
for the Department of Agriculture in Arizona on irrigation investiga-
tions, and wrote several department bulletins on the duty of water in
Arizona.
From 1902 to 1911 he served as chief irrigation engineer for the
United States Indian Bureau, Department of the Interior, having been
appointed by President Roosevelt in 1902, and reappointed in 1904, and
again by the Secretary of the Interior in 1910. He resigned in 1911 to
enter private practice. During the last years of his government work
he had general supervision over expenditures approximating a million
dollars annually. This work comprised the construction of canal sys-
tems, reservoirs and pumping plants, covering several hundred thousand
acres of irrigable land in various states and territories west of the
Mississippi. During 1910 he was also a member of the advisory board
of engineers of the city of Los Angeles in the matter of the disposal of
the surplus waters from the new aqueduct. That subject was also part
of the professional business of the firm of Quinton, Code & Hill from
its organization in 1911. As a member of this firm Mr. Code has been
engaged in many important engineering projects, including hydraulic
work in the United States, Mexico and Canada. One of the most ex-
tensive projects in which Mr. Code has been interested as a member of
this firm was the project for reclaiming 72,000 acres in Fresno County
for the San Joaquin Farm Lands, the initial cost of which was three
million dollars. The firm's services were also required for the Pine
Flat Reservoir and Dam, Fresno, and the Millerton Dam, Reservoir and
Irrigation System in the San Joaquin Valley. Another project was that
undertaken by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Arizona to
reclaim land for the growing of Egyptian cotton.
Mr. Code is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers,
the Southern California Engineers' and Architects' Association, and is
a member of the California and Gamut Clubs. September 14, 1893,
he married Martha E. Devlin, of Bay City, Michigan.
Louis C. Hill, who since March 1, 1914, has been a member of the
firm Quinton, Code & Hill, consulting engineers, is on the basis of his
experience and achievement one of the foremost construction and elec-
trical engineers in America.
He was born at Ann Arbor, Michigan, February 22, 1865, son of
Alva Thomas and Frances (Bliss) Hill. He is a graduate Bachelor of
Science in Civil Engineering and Electric Engineering from the Uni-
versity of Michigan, and in 1911 received the honorary degree Master
of Engineering. He began the practical work of his profession in 1886.
During 1887 he was with the Duluth, Redwing & Southern Railroad,
and also assistant engineer in the St. Paul ofifice of the United States
38 LOS ANGELES
Engineer Corps, and in 1888 resident engineer of the Great Northern
Railroad at St. Paul. From 1890 to 1903 he was professor of hydraulic
and electrical engineering in the Colorado School of Mines.
During 1903-04 Mr. Hill was engineer for the United States Geo-
logical Survey in charge of the Roosevelt Dam in New Mexico, and in
January, 1905, entered the United States Reclamation Service as super-
vising engineer, and was gradually placed in charge of all the work in
the southern district, including Arizona, southern California, New
Mexico, Texas and Utah.
His specially important assignments while with the reclamation
service were on the Salt River project, in which he had full charge of
the design and construction of the power canal, also the diversion d^m
and diversion works at the head of the canal and the location and con-
struction of the 147 miles of mountain road.
In connection with the Roosevelt Dam he had charge of the con-
struction and operation of the cement mill, the design and construction
of the dam itself and allied works ; also had charge of construction and
operation and assisted in the design of the power plant at Roosevelt.
In the spring of 1906 he took general charge of the Yuma project,
and for a time had charge of the construction of the Laguna Dam,
which is built on the quicksand bottom of the Colorado River, and
since completion has successfully withstood two unprecedented floods.
He also had charge of the construction of the very difficult inverted
siphon under the Colorado River at Yuma. Mr. Hill was a member
of the American commission on the division of the waters of the Rio
Grande between the United States and Mexico, and tlie division of the
water of the Colorado River. In 1908 the Strawberry Valley project
was added to the southern district under his supervision. He had
general charge of the design and construction of the distribution sys-
tem for the Rio Grande project, and on March* 1, 1914, by promotion,
he became consulting engineer in special charge of the famous Elephant
Butte Dam on the Rio Grande River. Mr. Hill was a member of the
board of engineers which made the report to the city of Austin, Texas,
on the plans for the building of a new dam in the Colorado River of
Texas. While with the reclamation service he was also supervising
engineer on several well-known CaHfornia projects, including the Pine
Flat Reservoir and Dam at Fresno, the Madera Reservoir and Dam on
San Joaquin River, and was consulting engineer for the contractor in
the building of the Otay Dam in San Diego County. For the past five
years he has also been identified with the many important projects
with which the firm Quinton, Code & Hill have been connected.
Mr. Hill is a member of the Colorado Scientific Society, American
Society of Civil Engineers, American Forestry Association, the Na-
tional Geographic Society, and during the war he was consulting en-
gineer for the United States Army for Camp Kearney. August 26,
1890, he married Gertrude B. Rose, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Their
home is at Hollywood.
John C. Cline. There are many reasons why John C. Cline is
probably the best known public official of Los Angeles County. While
now in his second term of service as county sheriff he held the same
office twenty-five years ago, has been a resident of Los Angeles half a
century since early boyhood, is a former collector of customs for the
Los Angeles district, and in both business and public affairs he has
associated with the leading men of both the old and the newer genera-
tion of Southern California.
m^H^f^mmmm^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 39
Though born a British subject, a native of Australia, Sherifif Cline
is member of an old Maryland family of thoroughly patriotic Ameri-
can antecedents. His paternal grandfather Casper Cline was a native
of Maryland, an extensive planter and land owner, served with the
rank of captain in the American forces during the War of 1812, and
by character as well as practical work stood as one of the first citi-
zens of his community. His wife was Catherine Evans. Her father
was Colonel Robert Evans, an ancestor of the late "Fighting Bob"
Evans, one of the best known and most picturesque figures in the Ameri-
can navy. The Evans family came originally from Wales and for many
years lived on the Howard Woods tract of Baltimore, ground that is
now embraced in the Druid Hill Park. One of the sons of Casper
Cline was George T. Cline, who became a lumber manufacturer and a
millionaire property owner in Chicago where he died in 1906. The
father of Sheriff Cline was John A., who was born at Frederick, Mary-
land. From some of his ancestors he doubtless inherited the pioneer
spirit of adventure, and in 1848 he left his ancestral home and the com-
forts and other advantages of social position to seek his fortune in new
lands. He went to Australia, engaged in mining at Ballarat, and later
at Melbourne became proprietor of the Spreadeagle Hotel, the largest
house of entertainment at that time in Melbourne. He also conducted
a hotel at Ballarat and operated a stage line between the two cities.
His business affairs were prospered in Australia but eventually he
returned to Maryland, and later joined his brother George T., in lum-
ber operations around Lake Michigan. In 1869 he turned over his
lumber business to his brother arid brought his family to Southern
California with the intention of making Los Angeles his home. After
that he lived retired and was a resident of California nearly thirty
years. He died in July, 1896. He was prominent in the Odd Fel-
lows and Knights of Pythias fraternities, was a stanch republican in
politics, and was a member of the Methodist church and widely known
for his charity and good fellowship.
In Australia John A. Cline married Miss Agnes Neven. She was
born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Her father, William Neven, was a
landed proprietor in Scotland. He also indulged in extensive travels,
and while in Australia at Melbourne his daughter and John A. Cline
became acquainted. John C, William H., George T. and Casper W.
are the four sons of John A. Cline and wife, and all are residents of
Los Angeles.
John C. Cline was bom at Ballarat, Australia, May 2, 1860, and
was taken from that country too early for him to have any impressions
of the land of his birth. He spent part of his childhood in Maryland,
in the Middle West, and was nine years of age when he came to Los
Angeles. He acquired a good education in grammar and high schools,
and also completed a course in the La Fetras Business College. After
leaving school he was employed for a time with a railroad surveying
party under Chalmer Scott for the Southern Pacific Railroad between
Yuma and Port Ysabel, Mexico. On returning to California he was
appointed deputy to City Surveyor H.-^nsen, and subsequently served
as deput)' county assessor, and in 1883 was elected township constable.
At the close of this term he was appointed deputy sheriff under Sheriff
Kays, and held that ofiice for six years. Mr. Cline has always been a
steadfast Republican, and was an effective leader and organizer in his
party when it represented the minority of membership in Southern Cali-
fornia. When he was first elected sheriff of Los Angeles county in 1892,
40 LOS ANGELES
his election by a large majority was counted as a signal triumph for the
republican forces and his individuality combined against the concen-
trated democratic forces. He was sheriff of Los Angeles county from
January, 1893, to January, 1895. Mr. Cline was one of the original
McKinley supporters in California and began the work of building up
support for that Ohio statesman in the Sixth and Seventh Congressional
districts a year and a half before the general campaign of 1896 was
started. In 1896 he was a delegate to the State Convention. In 1899
he received the appointment of Collector of Customs in the district of
Los Angeles under President McKinley, and was chief of the office
supervising the collection in three ports of entry, Los Angeles, San
Pedro and Santa Barbara. He handles the afifairs of his office with a
rare degree of business ability, and with the tact and judgment required
of the office, and after four years was reappointed for a second term by
President Roosevelt. At the clo.se of his second term he voluntarily
retired from official life for several years. Mr. Cline was elected sheriff
of Los Angeles County in the fall of 1914, beginning his first term
of office in January, 1915. He was re-elected m 1918, getting a majority
Over four opponents at the primaries, and his present term expires in
January, 1923.
Besides his prominent part in official affairs Mr. Cline is owner
of much valuable property in Los Angeles, and has busied himself with
its improvement and with an active part in every movement calcu-
lated to advance the welfare of Los Angeles. He contributed much to
the success of the annual fiesta by organizing the first club of Cabal-
leros, which later became the feature of the parade. At the time of
President McKinley's visit to Los Angeles Sheriff Cline acted as grand
marshal of the Fiesta Parade, and was also grand marshal of the Free
Harbor jubilee and of the Fiesta Parade at the time of President Roose-
velt's visit in 1903. He was a leader in the organization known as
"Teddy's Terrors," a political club of Roosevelt times. Sheriff Cline
is affiliated with Lodge No. 99 of the Elks at Los Angeles, Lodge No.
42 of the Masons, with Los Angeles Scottish Rite Consistory, Al Malai-
kah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, with the Knights of Pythias and is a
member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Union League Club, Cham-
ber of Commerce and Automobile Club of Southern California.
Octobe- 12, 1885, at Los Angeles he married Miss Margaret Lee
Terry, a native of Lafayette, Indiana. To their marriage were born
three sons, J. Banning and George C, deceased, and Harry W. Harry
■W. is deputy under his father and chief of the criminal department
of the office. Mrs. Cline is a daughter of George and Louisa (Stout)
Terry. Her father was a decendant of the Terry and Mills families
of New Orleans, who later became early settlers in Indiana. The
grandfather of George Terry had a factory operated by water power
for the manufacture of the large "Grandfather" cabinet clocks, with
wooden wheel mechanism, of which he was the inventor. The Stout
family for many years had their home in New Jersey and were also
early settlers in Indiana.
Gilbert S. Wright. There are few men whose fortunes and activi-
ties have been more closely linked with the development of property in
and around Los Angeles during the last quarter of a century than Gilbert
S. Wright. Mr. Wright is more than a skillful real estate operator,
knowing land values from the standpoint of the practical farmer and
owner long before he was a broker and dealer.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE S1':A 41
Mr. Wrig-ht was born at Vevay, in soutliern Indiana, August 21,
1869, son of William Patten and Elizabeth Bonner (Ungels) Wright.
Five years after his birth his parents removed to Memphis, Tennessee,
and soon afterward located at Cairo, Illinois. Gilbert S. Wright at-
tended the public schools of Cairo up to his twelfth year. In 1881 he
entered the' Chickering Institute at Cincinnati, but in 1883 came to
California with his parents. His father first located at Colton while
prospecting for a ranch, and then secured a twenty-acre tract at Duarte,
in Los Angeles County, which he developed as an orange grove and
eventually made one of the show pL-jces of that vicinity. While ^there
Gilbert ,S. Wright continued his education in the local schools and also
worked on the home ranch for two years.
His first business experience was at Los Angeles as office boy with
Ben E. Ward, a well-known real estate man of the time, with offices on
Court street, then the center of business activities. Mr. Wright was
with Mr. Ward until the collapse of the boom of 1887, and during the
next three or four years he busied himself with the improvement of two
ranches owned by his father, one at Clearwater and one at Glendale.
In 1890 his father gave iiim the Glendale ranch. This land was pur-
chased originally at one hundred and fifty dollars an acre. Mr. Wright
developed it by setting it into oranges and made it one of the highly
improved estates of that community. In 1890 Glendale had a popula-
tion of not more than one hundred people. Mr. Wright kept the ranch
until 1905, and then broke it up into lots and sold it, realizing twenty-
five hundred dollars an acre.
Long before this he had resumed active connections with real
estate circles in Los Angeles. In 1894 Mr. Wright became associated
with an important real estate office of Los Angeles, where he built up
the rental department to splendid proportions, the first rental depart-
ment in Los Angeles. In 1897 he left this position to become asso-
ciated with Harry R. Callender as the Wright & Callender Company,
with offices at 215 West Third street. Their business was exclusively
rentals. In 1899 their clientage had grown so as to necessitate their
taking larger quarters at Fourth and Broadway, where the O. T. John-
son Building now stands. In 1901 they moved again, this time into
the Wright & Callender Building, a three-story pressed brick and plate
glass structure which was erected for them by their client, C. J. Fox,
now of Lamande Park.
In 1906 Wright & Callender bought the southwest corner of Fourth
and Hill streets, and the Wright & Callender Building Company, wnich
they organized and of which Mr. Wright is vice president, erected an
eleven-story fireproof building, which is the most conspicuous structure
in that immediate victiiity. .The attractiveness of the building for busi-
ness purposes is well illustrated in the fact that during the first five
years after its erection the vacancies did not exceed one-half of one
per cent. The ground covered by this building is 61x140 feet and was
formerly owned by General Mansfield.
In 1909 a reorganization of the firm occurred when Mr. Andrews
entered a partnership, the title of which is now the Wright-Callender-
Andrews Company. Mr. Wright is president of the company, which
handles general real estate transactions, loans, insurance and rentals.
It is one of the oldest and most substantial firms- in Los Angeles.
Mr. Wright is well known socially, a member of the California
Club, the Los Angeles Country Club and the Chamber of Commerce,
and he has been liberal of his time and eflforts in civic movements and
42 LOS ANGELES
the general upbuilding of his home city. He is a Republican voter and
a member of the Episcopal Church. August 19, 1897, at Goderich,
Ontario, Canada, he married Miss Mary Atrill. They have two chil-
dren. Mary Elizabeth is now attending the Marlborough School for
Girls of Los Angeles. Gilbert Atrill, born in 1903, is a student in the
Claremont School for Boys at Claremont, California.
Dennis Sullivan. The memory of hardly any Los Angeles pioneer
is now more clearly defined in material lines and institutions of the city
than that of the late Dennis Sullivan. It was the fortune of Dennis Sul-
livan to live nearly forty years in a district and community which when
he first homesteaded there was far away from the town of Los Angeles
and a strictly ranching community, but which before his death had be-
come incorporated in the city itself, and is now a district of beautiful
homes, churches and schools, and with property constantly increasing in
value.
Dennis Sullivan was born at Bantry, County Cork, Ireland, Decem-
ber 25, 1832. His parents were Timothy and Catherine (Harrington)
Sullivan, both now deceased. When he was nineteen years old Dennis
Sullivan determined to seek his fortune in the Western Hemisphere.
His first location was at Fall River, Massachusetts, and he became a
farmer near that great textile manufacturing center. He lived there
until 1870, and in the meantime married and some of his children were
born.
Dennis Sullivan was a passenger on the first train that came over
the Union Pacific Railroad into San Francisco in 1870. From San
Francisco he came south to Los Angeles, arriving in March of that
year, and soon afterward homesteaded and bought a section of land in
the Cahuenga Valley, where his was practically the first white family to
locate. At that time the valley had only a few Mexican ranchers. On
the ranch he established the home, and it was in that community that
he spent the rest of his industrious years.
The limits of the Sullivan homestead may be traced today by the
city streets extending from Vermont avenue to Normandie avenue on
the east and west, and from Santa Monica boulevard to Melrose avenue
on the north and south. His home was well out in the country, but year
after year the city encroached upon him, gradually absorbing his ranch,
and finally all was taken into the metropolis of the Pacific Coast. Much
of this was sold in acreage and was platted and improved by the second
purchaser, but the Sullivan estate still owns an appreciable amount of
very valuable property in that district.
Dennis Sullivan died October 25, 1908, at his home where he had
lived for thirty-eight years. The property he acquired by patent from
President Grant. The old homestead is now the site of the new State
Normal School, said to be the finest normal school in the United States.
Dennis Sullivan was a man of fine business judgment, industrious
and capable in all his affairs, and withal was exceedingly generous and
free handed. He donated an acre of land for the Immaculate Heart of
Mary Church, and also the grounds for the parish house.
In Fall River, Massachusetts, March 5, 1859, he married Miss Mar-
garet Murphy, daughter of Timothy and Ellen (O'Neil) Murphy. She
was born at Castletowii, Ireland, February 3, 1843. She died March 16,
1917. They were the parents of nine children, three sons and six daugh-
ters, all of whom are well known in Los Angeles and vicinity. These
children grew up and most of them lived at the old homestead until 1912.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 43
The late Dennis Sullivan and wife were prominent members of the
Catholic Church and generous supporters of its various causes and
philanthropies.
Henry E. Huntington. If there is "a name to conjure with" in
California it is that of Huntington. Collis P. Huntington was the master
mind in consolidating the Southern Pacific Railway, and rivaled the late
J. J. Hill as an empire builder. Collis Huntington had many able lieu-
tenants and associates, but probably not one better fitted to wield the
scepter of power which he forged than his own nephew, Henry E. Hunt-
ington, whose work, whether considered in connection with that of his
uncle or individually, gives him a place among the dominant great figures
in American finance and constructive enterprise.
Henry E. Huntington was born at Oneonta, New York, February
27, 1850, a son of Solon and Harriet (Saunders) Huntington. His
father, Solon Huntington, was born in Connecticut in 1821. The Hunt-
ingtons came to Connecticut Colony as early as 1632 and throughout
American history have been notalile for their strong, sturdy qualities,
and not a few of them have been distinguished for their abilities. Solon
Huntington was educated in Connecticut and at the age of seventeen
left home and found employment with a merchant at Boston. In 1842
he established a store of his own in central New York, and subsequently
took into partnership his brother Collis and for a number of years after-
wards the brothers were associated as owners of lands and in other en-
terprises, in the family of Solon and Harriet Saunders Huntington
were seven children : Mrs. B. W. Foster, of Huntington, West Vir-
ginia ; Ploward and George D., now deceased ; Henry E. ; Harriet and
W. B., both deceased ; and Mrs. E. B. HoUiday, of San Marino, Cali-
fornia.
Henry E. Huntington attended private and public schools in his
native town and acquired his first business experience in a hardware store
there. At the age of twenty he went with one of the large hardware
houses in New York city. From 1871 to 1876 he was engaged in lum-
bering and lumber manufacture at St. Albans in West Virginia. It is
said that his successful experience in the lumber industry recommended
him to his uncle, Collis Huntington, who made him superintendent of
construction of the Huntington lines, then building from Louisville to
New Orleans under the title Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern. He
was superintendent of construction with this railroad from 1880 to
1884. In 1884 he was made superintendent, in 1885 was receiver, and
from 1886 to 1890 was vice president and general manager of the Ken-
tucky Central Railway. From that point no consecutive account could
be given of his rapidly accumulating interests as a railroad builder and
financier. He was vice president and general manager of the Elizabeth,
Lexington and Big Sandy & Ohio Valley Railways in 1890-92, and in
the latter year joined his uncle in the Southern Pacific, serving as assist-
ant to the president from 1892 to 1900, as second vice president during
1900, and later as first vice president of the Southern Pacific Company.
He was also president of the Southern Pacific Railways of Arizona and
New Mexico, the Carson & Colorado Railway, the Market Street Cable
Railway of San Francisco. \\'hile in San Francisco he acquired the
San Francisco Street Railway, but in 1898 sold that property and be-
gan acquiring street railroads at Los Angeles. With the development
of the great urban and interurban system of transportation in and
around Los Angeles his name is most conspicuously identified. He
44 LOS ANGELES
became sole owner of the street railway system, bought connecting lines
and established the Pacific Electric Company, and did the pioneer work,
both planning and building, until Los Angeles became the center of a
radiating interurban system with thousands of miles of track. Without
doubt this system of transportation has been the chief element in mak-
ing Los Angeles the city it is. He extended the system to the ocean
beaches and up through the inland country over the orange belt, and
when the system had passed the stage of experiment he sold out to the
Southern Pacific Company.
Since 1910 Mr. Huntington has considered himself retired, but
there are few men in the fullness of their strength and powers who
offer counsel to no larger a number of important corporations, and he
is still chairman of the board of directors of the Newport News Ship-
Iniilding and Dry Dock Company, chairman of the board of directors of
the Safety Installation Wire and Cable Company, director of the Chesa-
peake & Ohio Railroad, the Hocking \'alley Railroad, Southern Pacific.
Minneapolis & St. Louis and many other railroad organizations, and a
director of the Equitable Trust Company of New York, the National
Surety Company, and of animposing list of other companies, the naines
of which are in the nature of a catalog of railroad properties in the
United States and of railway, land and commercial institutions in
California.
It is a matter of special significance that Mr. Huntington held the
post of chairman of the board of directors of the Newport News Ship-
building and Dry Dock Company during the great 'war. This company
is one of the largest shipbuilding concerns in America, has built many
battleships for the government and its facilities were enormously in-
creased to meet the urgent demands of the war and in 1919 the company
had contracts for four United States battleships, forty-one destroyers,
two troop ships and eight oil ships for the government. Records of
the company have been'entirel)' free from labor disturbances. It is Mr.
Huntington's policy to pay men living wages, and he has always taken
a personal interest in seeing that men in his employ are properly ad-
vanced. Some years ago he said that he always had three or four men
ready to occupy the post of president whenever it was necessary for
the incumbent of that office to step out.
Mr. Huntington is credited with being one of the greatest builders
of resorts on the Pacific coast. Probably no one individual through the
resources and enterprise at his command has done more to make of Los
Angeles a great and powerful metropolis than Mr. Huntington.
He is a member of the Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Country Club,
California Club, San Gabriel Country and Anandale Country Club of
Pasadena ; the Metropolitan Club and the Union League Club of New
York City; and of his numerous club memberships he doubtless regards
the one affording greatest distinction as that in the Hobby Club of New
York City. This club is limited to fifty members, and at present there
are thirty-five members. The essential principle of the club is that each
member must have a hobby. Mr. Huntington's hobby is books and
paintings. Some of his interests outside of business are represented by
his membership in the American Museum of Natural History, the Con-
cordance Society, the Southwest Museum of Los Angeles, the Pasadena
Music and Art Association, the Society of Colonial Wars, and the Bibli-
ophile Club of Boston. Mr. Huntington owns the finest private col-
lections of English literature and Americana in the world, including
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 45
the original manuscript of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, the first
collection of Washington manuscripts, the largest private collection of
Lincoln letters and manuscripts. The home where he delights to spend
his time and where he has most of his treasures is near Pasadena, a
magnificent country estate, the de\elopment of -which has Deen made
to express Mr. Huntington's versatile interests as a lover of beauty
and nature.
The Huntington library, whicli will soon he erected, will give the
name of Henrv E. Huntington a tloniinant ]ilace anning .American bene-
factors. The magnitude of this undertaking has been describei' in a
local publication and is here reproduced :
"Henry E. Huntington, millionaire shipbuilder and owner of the
Los Angeles Street Railway, shortly will begin work on the con.struction
of a magnificent private library building, to cost in the neighborhood of
Si25,00O, near his palatial residence at San Marino.
"The structure will house the finest collection of paintings in Ameri-
ca and the most important i)rivate collection of books in the world. The
big institution, once com])leted and set in good running order, will be
presented as a public benefaction to the people of the Southland, re])re-
senting a gift valued intrinsically at more than $20,000,000.
"Plans for the building have been in process of preparation by Archi-
tect Myron l^Iunt of this city for several years, but the erection of the
institution has been postponed from time to time owing to the prohibi-
tive prices of labor and material.
"The Huntington ])rivate lil)rary will be 20U feet s(|uare an I hoUl
about 200,000 volumes, as well as jirovide amjik' sjiace for a large pic-
torial exhibit. It will be built after the fashion of a great vault, with
large exhibit rooms and cataloguing dejiartment. It will require twenty
years, it is said, for a thorough cataloguing of the rare volumes, manu-
scripts and early editions that Mr. Huntington nciw has stored in his
residence on Fifth Avenue, New York City.
"The assemblage of the books and manuscrijjts comprising the pres-
ent Huntington library covers a period of ten years, and it is said that
the British museum is his only com])etitor in number and rarity of ex-
hibits. He has bought nj) the ancient collections of a number of mem-
bers of the En.glish nobility, selecting from them the choicest volumes
and selling the remainder at auction, lie is said to ])r)sscss first efJinOns
of all the great writers of the Elizabethan period.
"It is understood to be Mr. Huntington's plan ultimately to gi\e his
rare and beaiitiful collections, together with the jjalace in which he will
house them, to the iniblic. He is sixty-eight years of li.ge and is be-
lieved to fear that further ])ostponenient in carrying out his long-cher-
ished beneficiary plan might lead to failure to bring about its comjiletion.
so, despite the still prevalent high jjrices, work will l)e liegun on the
librarv' in the very near future.
"The building will be of stone and concrete. Sixteen men arc now-
cataloguing the books in the New York home."
In 1873 Mr. Huntington married Mary E. Prentice. July 16. 1913.
he married Mrs. Arabella D. Huntington. His children are : Howard E.
Huntington. Pasadena : Mrs. Clara Perkins, San Francisco ; Mrs. Eliza-
beth Metcalf. Berkeley: and Miss Marian Huntington, San Franci.sco.
46 LOS ANGELES
Frank A. Mennillo. Probably the chief commercial authority on
olive culture, packing and marketing in California is Frank A. Mennillo.
He learned the olive industry in his native land of Italy, and he is a
veteran in the business though a comparatively young man.
Mr. Mennillo was- born in Naples, Italy, April 10, 1882, son Oif
Pasquale and Viola Mennillo. He was educated in the common schools
and a technical school, graduating at the age of thirteen. After an-
other year and a half in a commercial college he went to work for his
father, a prominent dealer and exporter in olive oil, tomato sauce, and
also proprietor of the largest castor oil factory in Naples.
After a long and thorough apprenticeship Mr. Mennillo in 1904
came to America and landed at New York City, where he opened a
branch house for his father's business. He later opened another house
in Boston. He was interested in the export business until it practically
ceased at the outbreak of the war. Mr. Mennillo came to Los Angeles
in 1915 and here established a tomato sauce packing department for
the American Olive Company. He was instrumental in devising and
perfecting more sanitarj' methods of packing this sauce. Machinery
made after his especial supervision was introduced into the depart-
ment. Since 1917 Mr. Mennillo has been a director in the company
and since 1915 has done a large business in buying and selling of olives
grown in California, and also in introducing the Italian and Greek methods
of curing among the local packeries. He is now operating six olive can-
neries in California. During 1918 two thousand tons of olives were
handled by his organization, and about one hundred ten thousand dollars
worth of California olive oil was bought by him and sold in the eastern
market. Mr. Mennillo has done much to stimulate and stabilize the olive
industry through the liberal features of his contracts and a co-operative
principle between the packers and growers. His organization has arranged
for contracts on a period of years basis, assuring fair market prices,
and also furnishes the expert services of an agricultural chemist to the
growers who have contracts with Mr. Mennillo for his company. Besides
the technical service furnished to the olive growers through this plan
the growers also have another benefit in forms of cash advances made
on the basis of their crop before marketing.
Some interesting facts concerning the olive industry in California
and his own connection therewith were quoted by the Fig and Olive
Journal. In an interview Mr. Mennillo was quoted as saying: "The ripe
olive is California's special and unique product and the future of the
industry here depends largely upon its maintenance in the markets. For
some years, before coming to California, to establish myself in the olive
business I took a particular interest in the California ripe olive, and I
may say, with due modesty, that I first established the ripe olive among
the foreign elements in the markets of New York and Boston, where I
was then and am still engaged in the business.
"Later I helped to build up at their request the Italian department
of F. H. Leggett & Company, of New York, one of the largest wholesale
firms in the United States. Soon after I left F. H. Leggett & Company
I engaged myself directly with the American Olive Company for the
inirpose of developing their business among the Latin people in the east,
and the success of that work can be verified by the said company. I think
this will show my interest in the ripe olive and its future, and I will
say at this time that though we will handle a considerable amount of
olives put up in the Greek and Italian form, cured in salt, to meet the
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 47
present needs of our foreign born trade in the large eastern cities, we
will also process and pack in cans California ripe olives in large quantities,
for which we have developed a good market throughout the Atlantic
seaboard cities."
In November, 1917, Mr. Mennillo organized the Ruddle & Mennillo
Company, of which he is a partner. This firm has the sole agency for
the Frageol Truck and Tractors in southern California. The Frageol
farm tractor has commended itself to many users in the orchards of
California, and its unique feature is its traction method, eliminating the
familiar caterpillar form and depending upon a drive wheel with legs,
thirty-two in number, which experience has demonstrated are inestimably
practicable even when used in soft soil.
In October, 1918, Mr. Mennillo bought the controlling interest in
the Marine Products Company at Terminal, California. This is a large
fish cannery. In other ways he has identified himself with southern Cali-
fornia and is a member of the Jonathan Club, the Los Angeles Athletic
Club, the Automobile Club of Southern California, Los Angeles Cham-
ber of Commerce. He is a republican and a member of the Catholic
Church. At Long Island, New York, in October, 1906, Mr. Mennillo mar-
ried Miss Z. E. Lignente. Their one child, Arnaldo, born in 1910, is a
pupil at the Hollywood School for Boys and Girls.
William Edmund Youle. It would be a confirmed pessimist in-
deed who could not derive encouragement and inspiration from the
career and achievements of William Edmund Youle of Los Angeles.
Some narrow minded philosophers contend that the world and civiliza-
tion are on their last legs, that the resources of the earth are about ex-
hausted, and that the wit and ingenuity of mankind have attained their
climax. The experiences of Mr. Youle constitute a human document
that would serve to refute and confound such opinions. Mr. Youle is a
very practical man and though now past three score and ten is busy every
day, and it would serve a splendid purpose if he might be induced to
write the story of his life. It would be not only a most instructive his-
tory of the American petroleum industry, but however modestly told it
would also have that broader significance that is involved in any account
of the struggles of masterful, determined and far-sighted men against
the inertia of physical and human forces. In this sketch it is possible to
suggest only the bold outlines of Mr. Youle's career.
He was born at Pontiac, Michigan, August 21, 1847, son of William
and Bridget Youle, the former a native of England and the latter of
Ireland. At the age of fifteen he left the schools of his native city.
The following year he went to the oil fields of Pennsylvania. That was
in 1863, and those casually acquainted wuh the history of the petroleum
industry do not need to be informed that the oil business even in west-
ern Pennsylvania was still in its pioneer phases. Though very young
Mr. Youle became a driller and contractor and for thirteen years was
one of the most active in developing and exploiting the oil territory of
Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He not only mastered the technical
processes of oil production, but almost from the first stood out as a
leader of men, a business executive, and with a vision that led him to
constantly enlarging enterprises. He deserves his niche of fame with
the group of men who did most to develop and stabilize the oil industry
in the eastern states. But the importance of his work there has always
been overshadowed by his achievements in California. It is not merely
proper to refer to Mr. Youle as "the" veteran of the oil industry in
48 LOS ANGELES
California since he has more to his credit than forty odd years of con-
tinuous work in these fields. Before he came west geologists and other
scientists had declared that there was no oil to be found in commercial
quantities in California. Mr. Youle and his associates demonstrated by
drilling that it was here, and therefore in every real sense he was a dis-
coverer. But he did more than point out the promised land as many
discoverers have done ; he showed how to take possession of it and has
always been in the forefront of the developments which have returned
untold riches from the petroleum deposits of the Pacific Coast.
When some California capitalists determined to inaugurate practi-
cal tests for proving the oil resources of California, they naturally
looked to the East for the proper man to handle the problem. They
were attracted to Mr. Youle not only by his long career as a success-
ful drilling contractor and operator, but also by the profitable results
which have attended his efforts as superintendent of the United States
Oil Company at Oil City, Pennsylvania. After some negotiation Mr.
Youle came west in 1877, and after some preliminary investigation
directed his force of expert workmen, to put down the first test well in
Moody's Gulch, in Santa Clara County, and here was brought
in the first paying oil well in the Golden State. As that was the begin-
ning of the California oil industry, likewise was it only the beginning
of Mr. Youle's 0]3erations which have extended, over a period of more
than forty years, and have included the drilling of upwards of two
hundred wells. Li 1877 he proved the field in Moody's Gulch in Santa
Clara County, and in 1884 started operations in the famous Puente oil
regions. In 1890 he was the first contracting well driller to appear in
the noted Sunset fields in Kern County. For eleven years he was almost
ceaselessly active in that district, and developed not only the Sunset
but also the ]\lcKittrick and Midway oil fields, the latter being regarded
as one of the richest oil districts ever found on the American'continenl.
Thus summary of his achievements does little justice to the stu-
pendous obstacles that were frequently overcome and the difficulties
that tried the skill and patience even of such a veteran oil worker as
Mr. Youle. It is well known that he frequently had other problems
than those presented by nature alone. He had to sway and convince
men's stubborn opinions to his own faith and conviction. Frequently
he was condemned for persisting in sinking his drill hundreds of feet
below what was then considered the oil level, his critics declaring that
it was impossible to drill to the depth contemplated by liim. He went
on with the 'work, however, and his judgment was finally vindicated
by striking oil at extreme depths.
Moreover, he deserves great credit for extending the use of oil,
especially crude oil for fuel purposes. He handled the first car load
of oil that was handled for fuel purposes in Los .\ngeles, this being
delivered to the Lankershim flour mills of that city. His personal in-
fluence converted many manufacturers and business men to the use of
crude oil at a time when its use was not considered practicable.
For years Mr. Youle has been regarded as a very dependable
authority on oil matters, particularly in the far west. He has been
identified with every new oil field in California. It is said that through
him many hundreds of thousands of dollars have been safely invested
in the business, and at the same time many other thousands have been
saved to those who otherwise might have embarked in losing proposi-
tions.
E
I
C^^yl^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 49
As an oil geologist Mr. Youle has developed marked ability and his
judgment of oil land possibilities ranks with the best.
Some years ago in one of the most important oil land suits ever
brought, up to that time, by the United States government — a suit
involving land values of from fifteen million to twenty million dollars
— Mr. Youle and many of the most celebrated geologists of the coun-
try were called to testify as experts. Among them were such men as
Dr. John Casper Branner, Arthur C. Veach (chief geologist for the
Lx)rd Cowdray & Pearson interests), J. A. Taff, Frank M. Anderson
and others.
Mr. W. N. Mills, assistant to the attorney general of the United
States, who conducted the suit, said "No more powerful and convinc-
ing testimony was given in the entire case, on either side, than that of
Mr. Youle, and the government's success in the litigation referred to
was largely due to the confidence and reliance placed by the trial court
upon Mr. Youle's ability and experience as a practical geologist. From
my knowledge of the man, extending over a period of five years, I had
rather have his opinion upon untested oil territory as a basis for in-
vestment than the opinion of any geologist of my acquaintance."
Mr. T. Spellacy, a well-known oil operator of Los Angeles, after
an acquaintance of nearly thirty years, said : "Mr. Youle is a man of
highest character and reliable, and I have always found him con-
scientious."
Many such testimonials could be given, for his friends are many and
his reputation and character are of the highest standing. During the
past five or six years Mr. Youle has given much attention to oil pros-
pects in Wyoming. He bought two thousand acres, organized the
Wyoming Consolidated Oil Company, and this company has already
carried forward considerable development work, having one well down
two thousand feet and with a satisfactory outlook. He also organized
another company on adjacent lands.
Mr. Youle has been a resident of Los Angeles for forty years, and
while he has never been drawn into politics, is not a member of any
clubs, he is quietly interested in civic movements and has been generous
of time and means in behalf of the patriotic program. He has traveled
widely, and in 1913 returned to Los Angeles after ten months spent in
Europe. On January 10, 1870, at Pontiac, Michigan, he married Mary
Murphy, who passed away some years ago. They have two children,
Charles, well known in the oil business and now residing in Wyoming,
and May, the wife of John Box of Los Angeles, with the Standard Oil
Company.
LeCompte Davis. Probably no member of the Los Angeles bar
is more frequently referred to and in terms of respect and admiration
by his fellow associates as LeCompte Davis, who has been a resident
of Southern California for over thirty years. LeCompte Davis is a
scholarly lawyer, takes delight in literature and a broad range of studies,
not least in the book of human life itself, and has achieved distinction
all over the West as a criminal lawyer.
He was born in Mercer county, Kentucky, May 1, 1864, a son of
Henry Clay and Josephine (LeCompte) Davis. He was educated in
the common schools of Kentucky, graduated with the Law degree from
Centre College, at Danville, Kentucky, in 1887, was admitted to the bar
of his native state, and in the same year came to Los Angeles and began
practice. He served one term of two years as assistant district attorney
50 LOS ANGELES
of Los Angeles county, and left that office in 1895 to form a partner-
ship with Judson R. Rush. The firm of Davis & Rush has been in
existence now nearly a quarter of a century. It has been e.'ipecially
distinguished for its successful work in criminal trials. The firm has
been represented in over sixty murder cases. Mr. Davis was associated
in the defense of the celebrated McNamara dynamiting cases, and later
was associated in the defense of the noted Chicago lawyer, Clarence
Darrow, accused of bribery in those cases. In 1908 Mr. Davis de-
fended three prominent men accused in the Oregon land fraud cases
and secured acquittals in two instances. He was also a lawyer in the
defense in the Imperial Valley land fraud cases in 1909. Undoubtedly
he is one of the most eloquent and forceful pleaders who have appeared
in the courts of the Pacific Coast during the last three decades.
Mr. Davis is a member of the American Bar Association. His
hobby is books, and his private library contains more than 6,000 volumes,
besides a rare collection of old engravings and paintings. April 18, 1908,
at Ventura, California, Mr. Davis married Edythe Oilman.
Judson Randolph Rush. One of the oldest legal partnerships in
Southern California is that of Davis & Rush with offices in the Bryson
Building. Judson Randolph Rush and LeCompte Davis as young lawyers
were deputies in the district attorney's offices a6 Los Angeles. They
resigned January 7, 1895, establishing a partnership the same day, and
it is said that in the afternoon of that day they tried their first cases.
Their first offices were in a building on the site of the present Hall of
Records. These well known lawyers had one other associate, Frank R.
Willis for six years, until Mr. Willis was elected to the Superior Bench.
Many of the prominent cases in the courts of Southern California have
been handled by Davis & Rush, and their practice has also extended to
the states of Oregon and Washington.
Mr. Rush, who is an old time Californian and a man of wide and
varied business experience, was born in Greene County, Pennsylvania,
March 9, 1865, son of John L. S. and Dorcas (Parcell) Rush. The
Rush family have been residents of Pennsylvania through five genera-
tions, the immigrant ancestor having distinguished himself as an Indian
fighter. Mr. Rush was born in the same house as his grandfather.
In early boyhood his parents removed to Iowa where he attended
common schools and in 1881 he came to Santa Ana, California, and
spent three years as a cowboy and hunting in the mountains, living the
typical life of the western frontiersman. In 1886 he engaged in the dairy
business with his father at Pasadena, and also played a pioneer part in
the oil industry of California, working on the first well in the Fuller-
ton district. Three years he also conducted a prosperous meat market
business at Monrovia and El Monte.
The turning point of his career came with his election as justice of
the Peace for El Monte, an office he held from 1890 to 1892. When his
official calendar was not filled he spent his leisure in studying law under
his own direction, and worked to such good purpose that he passed the
bar examination in 1893, and a few months later was appointed one of
the deputy district attorneys. Mr. Rush has always been interested in
good government and in 1908 ran far ahead of his ticket as democratic
candidate for Congress in the Southern California District. He is a
member of the Los Angeles Bar Association, a thirty-second degree
Mason and Shriner, an Elk and a member of the Gamut Club. Mr.
Rush married Miss Augusta D. Salzen March 18, 1918, in Glendora,
Cahfornia.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 51
Thomas Edward Gibbon. The usefulness of the average man is
limited to a rather narrow channel. He docs his work, carries his respon-
sibilities and discharges his obligations, but the end of his life is usually
not far from the stage that was set for him at the beginning of his man-
hood. It is all the more surprising therefore what some men do and
achieve and how many movements and institutions come within the range
of "their influence. Los Angeles has a number of these more than ordi-
nary if not extraordinary men, and no one could doubt the propriety of
including Thomas Edward Gibbon in the list. He has been a member of
the Los Angeles bar for thirty years, but his routine accomplishments
as a lawyer are less well known than those numerous enterprises in
which he has been a conspicuous figure and which have been fraught
with consequences that are vital to the present and future welfare of
all Southern California.
Mr. Gibbon has had a very interesting career not only since he came
to Los Angeles b^it in his early life. He was born in Prairie county,
Arkansas, May 28, 1860, a son of William R. and Mary Jane (Wylie)
Gibbon. His father was born in Brunswick county, Virginia, March
19, 1832. He was liberally educated in the Virginia Military Institute
and the Medical Department of the University of Virginia, from which
he graduated in 1855. After two years of practice at LaGrange,
Tennessee, he moved to Prairie county, Arkansas. That Arkansas county
was his home the rest of his life, except the four year period of the Civil
war, during which his family lived in Texas and he himself had a place
in the ranks of the Confederate army. His range of usefulness was not
altogether confined to his work as a skillful practitioner of medicine.
Both before and after the war he owned and supervised an Arkansas
plantation. He died at his Arkansas home in 1891.
Thomas Edward Gibbon, only child of his parents, had his boy-
hood in a period which senses to indicate what terrific drains are made
upon a country and people as a result of a long continued war. The
entire South during and for some years after the Civil war had its
energies completely absorbed by the task of reconstruction, and it was
almost inevitable that institutions of education should be neglected and
meagerly provided for. Under such circumstances Mr. Gibbon gained
most of his early training at the direction of his cultivated parents. He
attended a private school about a year, for a few months was a student
in the Austin Academy at Austin, Arkansas, and then after some experi-
ence as a teacher himself he took special studies in a high school at Lone
Oak, Arkansas. At the age of nineteen he began teaching, and for a
couple of years did this work during a portion of the season, and other-
■ wise had charge of his father's plantation.
His limited means did not enable him to go away to college or uni-
versity. But on January 3, 1883, he joined what was known as the Little
Rock Law Class, an organization of young men who were determined to
study law but were unable to defray the expenses of a college course.
On May 22, 1883, Mr. Gibbon was admitted to practice by the Supreme
Court of Arkansas and the District and Federal Courts. The Federal
District Court was presided over at that time by Henry C. Caldwell, who
was one of Mr. Gibbon's law preceptors. Judge Caldwell later became
prominent as judge of the Eighth Circuit Court. With his license as a
lawyer Mr. Gibbon went back home and taught' three months of summer
school and in the fall of 1883 began practice at Little Rock. His ability
soon brought him the promise of success. In 1884 he was elected a mem-
52 LOS ANGELES
ber of the Lower House of the State Legislature, serving during 1884-85.
He continued private practice at the State Capital until 18.i6, wlien on
account of failing health he came to Los Angeles, and here after recuper-
ating resumed his position in the legal proiession, and is sail a lawyer
with all of the demands made upon his time and attention in other affairs.
Air. Gibbon in 1891 organized the Los Angeles Terminal Railway
Company for a group of St. Louis capitalists. He became vice-president
and general counsel of this road. The company bou.ht the railway
lines extending from Los Angeles to Glendale and from Los Angeles to
Pasadena, and also constructed a new road from Los Angeles to San
Pedro. This railroad was one of the initial enterprises which attracted
attention to and eventually culminated in the consolidation of Los Angeles
and San Pedro and the development of the latter as the Harbor City of
the Los Angeles district. In addition to the routine duties of his office
as general counsel for the Railway Company Mr. Gibbon gave much of
his time and effort to influencing the United States government to take
over and create a deep water harbor at San Pedro.
After the movement had reached a point where the harbor was
assured and work had already been undertaken by the government, Mr.
Gibbon succeeded in interesting Senator William A. Clark of Montana
in the enterprise of building a railway from Los Angeles to Salt Lake
City. In behalf of Senator Clark and his associates Mr. Gibbon in Janu-
ary, 1901, organized the present Los Angeles and Salt Lake Company,
which took over and acquired the property and interests of the Los
Angeles Terminal Railway Company. Mr. Gibbon was promoted to the
same official responsibilities in this company — vice-president and general
counsel — which he had held with the older organization and continued
in those offices until the completion of the line to Salt Lake. Mr. Gibbon
never gives a half-hearted support to any enterprise in which he is
embarked, and his long continued labors with these transportation lines
eventually brought a breakdown in health, so that he resigned his offices
andjor several months gave up his business and profession altogether
and traveled in Japan.
In the fall of 1907 Mr. Gibbon and associates bought the Los Angeles
Daily Herald, and for three years he was its president and managing
editor.
The municipal history of Los Angeles during the last twenty years
could not well be written without reference to Mr. Gibbon's activities.
In 1898 99 he served as a member of the Police Commission. While in
that office he with the co-operation of M. P. Snyder, then mayor,
originated the rule limiting the number of saloons in Los Angeles to two
hundred, and refusing" to issue or renew any saloon licenses outside the
police area of the city. This rule has since become an integral part of
the city charter. It afforded an interesting experiment in the restriction
and segregation of the liquor business in American cities, and this feature
of saloon regulation has been one of the most widely discussed elements
of the Los Angeles city government and the plan has been studied by
city experts all over the country.
When the P.oard of Harbor Commissioners of Los Angeles was
organized, the local Chamber of Commerce directly requested the appoint-
ment of Mr. Gibbon as a member of the body. He was so anpointed by
the mayor, and later for four years served as president of the commis-
sion. As a commission member he proposed and had adopted a resolu-
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 53
tion requesting the City Council of Los Angeles to bring action for the
recovery of the tide lands surrounding a considerable portion of San
Pedro harbor. This litigation and its consequences are also a prominent
item in modern progress and ilevelopment of the Los Angeles district,
as elsewhere described, and through Mr. Gibbon's foresighted efforts
the city now has title to several hundred acres surrounding the iiarbor,
a property valued at millions of dollars. Thus Los Angeles is one of
the fLW cities in the country that have taken steps to assure publicly
owneil terminal facilities at the waterfront, and with ability to control
what has frequently been a vexatious monopoly. During his term with
the harbor commission Mr. Gibbon was also instrumental in having Mr.
Goodrich, the well known harbor engineer of New York, employed for
the pur, ose of making a comprehensive plan for the development and
improvement of the Los Angeles harbor. That plan is now in process
of being carried out by the city. Another report prepared by Mr. (iibbon
through the Board of I-larbor Commissioners upon a municipal terminal
railroad system, and subsequently presented to and approved by the Los
Angeles City Council, led to the employment of Bion J. Arnold, the
eminent municipal transportation expert of Chicago, to prepare a com-
plete scheme for a municipal terminal railway system that would ade-
quately serve both the harbor and city.
Mr. Gibbon has been associated with many of the foremost men
of our time in business, professional and civic affairs. He is a member
of a number of interesting organizations, including the American Academy
of Political nnd Social Science, the American Association for Labor
Legislation, the National Child Labor Committee, the National Municipal
League, the Commonwealth Club, the National Geographic Society, the
Jonntban University, Bolsa Chico Gun, Los Angeles Athletic, Los Angeles
Country, City and Federation clubs of Los Angeles. Mr. Gibbon is a
democrat and a member of the Methodist Church.
December 9, 1891, at Little Rock, Arkansas, he married Ellen Rose,
daurhter of Judge U. M. Rose, one of the most distinguished of Arkan-
sas lawyers, and a former president of the American Bar Association.
Mrs. Gibbon died March 29, 1915, after a brief illness. She left two
childr'-n ; Lieutenant William Rose Gibbon, a student of Cornell Uni-
versity, and Thomas Edward, Jr.
Leo Minzer, one of the active young business men of Los Angeles,
has had a career of varied experience and interest.
He was born in the famous old-time mining district of Deadwood,
South Dakota, August 19, 1890, a son of Louis and Nettie (Holstein)
Minzer. He began his education in the public schools there, and when
he was twelve years old his parents came to Los Angeles, where he at-
tended school two years longer. His real business career began at the
age of fourteen as clerk in a drug store at Vermont avenue and Jeffer-
son street. After a year he was with Neuner & Company, printers and
bookbinders, as delivery boy six months, with the Los Angeles Pacifiq
Railway as clerk in the accounting department two years, was employed
at Co^Iinga by the Kern Trading and Oil Company in charge of its
commissary department three years, was bookkeeper at Kingman, Ari-
zon-i. six months, and on returning to Los Angeles became solicitor for
the Hollywood Laundry. With that business he has found probably
his permanent connection. After six years as solicitor he was in charge
54 LOS ANGELES
of the deliver)- route for two and a half years, then was foreman two
years, and since that time has been manager of this laundry, one of the
largest in Southern California. The company employs a hundred seventy-
five people, operates seventeen wagons, takes care of fifty-six hundred
patrons, and has a large and modernly equipped plant in a building
90x210 feet.
H. B. TiTCOMB. It has long been recognized that the Southern Paci-
fic Railway has always enlisted in its. service some of the resourceful en-
gineers and executives in the West. H. B. Titcomb was for twenty-seven
year.s in the service of that company before he entered upon his present
work, September 1, 1918, as vice president of the Pacific Electric Railway.
He is now vice president in charge of maintenance and traffic, construc-
tion and general operation of the Pacific Electric Company. He is also
vice president of the Pacific Electric Land Company.
Mr. Titcomb is an old Californian, though he was born at Indian-
apolis, Indiana, December 10, 1871. In 1873 his parents came to
California, locating on a farm near Modesto, and eighteen months later
moving to Atwater, Merced County, where Mr. Titcomb attended the
public schools, and lived a typical farmer boy until 1887. He then
entered the Indianapolis High School, and later Cogswell Polytechnic
College, at San Francisco, graduating in 1891.
Upon leaving college he entered upon his long service with the
Southern Pacific Company, in the capacity of a draftsman at San
Francisco. His record of service is briefly reviewed as follows: Pro-
moted to assistant engineer, construction division, in 1898; appointed
roadmaster of the western division in 1899 ; was successively road-
master of the Shasta and Sacramento divisions, 1900 and 1904 ; assist-
ant resident engineer from 1904 to 1905, resident engineer at Bakers-
field from 1905 to 1906, and at Los Angeles, 1906 to 1909; appointed
district engineer of Los Angeles, serving from 1909 to 1914; and main-
tenance of way assistant to the assistant chief engineer at San Fran-
cisco from 1915 to October 15, 1917, when he became superintendent
of the Stockton Division.
Some facts concerning this long service deserve more than routine
mention. He was engineer of planning and consummating the Southern
Pacific Railroad station in Los Angeles while division engineer from
1909 to 1914. But his resourcefulness was best exhibited during the
heavy floods of the Colorado River in the Imperial Valley. During that
time Mr. Titcomb was in charge of maintenance of that section of the
railroad. "The position he has come to occupy in industrial activity
has been earned step by step through his own individual eflfort, and
from this one is ])erforce led to believe that he has a very thorough
knowledge of every phase of a railroad man's life and appreciates many
of the rough places as well as the pleasant paths that all of us pass
over."
Mr. Titcomb is a member of the Jonathan and Athletic Clubs of
Los Angeles. He owns a beautiful bungalow at 208 South Ardmore
street, Los Angeles. He married, at San Francisco, Mabel Havens.
They have one daughter, Mildred, a student in the public schools of
Los Angeles.
William M.^nsfield Buffum. The life of William Mansfield
Buffum impressed itself conspicuously on the affairs of the territory of
Arizona during its early history, and was equally notable as a builder of
the modern city of Los Angeles. He achieved a position of wealth, but
/ iy'/Zca/tn/ ^Hci)M/teu/ <^ui4^/ i/.ni/
iflrjs M-'eMuSivm mxi ^an Ajaa
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 55
much more important than his wealth was the work he did and the in-
fluence he directed in so many ways to insure the permanent welfare and
substantial character of this section of Southern California.
Mr. Buffum was born at Salem, Massachusetts, May 10, 1832, and
his ancestry had in it all the fundamental virtues of the pure and un-
diluted American stock. He was a son of James R. and Susan (Mans-
field) Buflfum. Some of his ancestors were among the real founders
of New England. They were especially prominent in Rhode Island,
the first of the family locating there soon after Roger Williams estab-
lished the first settlement. Several of J\Ir. Buffum's forefathers were
soldiers in the War of the Revolution. His great-grandfatlier, Benjamin
Bates, was in 1778 commissioned a lieutenant by the Continental Con-
gress in the newly formed American Navy. He was one of the gallant
fighters who helped to make glorious the annals of the American Navy.
His original commission is still one of the prize documents and heirlooms
in the archives of the Buffum family. On the maternal side William
M. Buffum was descended from the Mansfields of New Hampshire,
who were among the first settlers of that state, and one of the family
later became governor of the commonwealth.
Until he was fifteen years of age Mr. Buft'um attended public schools
in the historic old town of Salem. In 1850 his brother George was
appointed postmaster of Stockton, California, by President Taylor.
George Buffum soon afterward sent for his young brother and the latter
made the long voyage to San Francisco by way of the Isthmus of
Panama. He assisted his brother in organizing the Stockton postoffice,
and later they were fellow prospectors for gold in Calaveras County.
William M. Buft'um became a resident of Los Angeles in 1859.
M that time he represented as agent one of the large concerns of San
Francisco. In 1871, when the territory of Arizona was organized, he
went to Prescott, and with John G. Campbell established the partner-
ship of Campbell & Buffum, which became one of the largest mercantile
enterprises of the territorj-. In 1873 Mr. Buff'um moved his family to
Prescott and for twelve or fifteen years was one of the leading spirits
in Arizona affairs. His prominence as a business man and his integrity
of character attracted to him men of all classes and particularly the
leaders and makers of pioneer history in the territory. Among other
men wnth whom he was associated at Prescott were E. P. Clark and
General M. H. Sherman, who later inaugurated the modern transpor-
tation systems in Pasadena and Los Angeles. Mr. Buffum served as
one of the members of the early legislature of Arizona. One of his
colleagues was Tom Fitch, who later achieved fame as an orator. He
was also one of the school trustees of Prescott, and was head of the
board when General M. H. Sherman was invited there to inaugurate
the school system. In 1877 General Fremont appointed Mr. Buft'um as
a member of the Territorial Prison Commission, and his presence on
that commission acted as a check to the loose and extravagant methods
which threatened to make the administration a public scandal. Mr.
Buffum while living in Arizona was one of the first to become interested
in the Arizona Verde mines, which since then have become one of the
most famous copper properties in the world.
In 1889 Mr. Buffum gave up his business interests in Arizona and
returned to Los Angeles. Here he became actively associated with Gen-
eral M. H. Sherman and E. P. Clark, who were at that time financing
and promoting an adequate street railway system for Los Angeles
and Pasadena. Mr. Buffum became treasurer of the company and was
its active official for twentv vears.
56 LOS ANGELES
From the first he had complete faith in the future of Los Angeles
and his foresight enabled him to make investments which have s nee
become fortunes in themselves. He owned some of the most important
parcels of local real estate at dififerent times. Most of his investments
were in the business district of Los Angeles, though his foresight enabled
him to place these investments in the line of development so that some
of them went outside the current of business and are now in the very
heart of the commercial metropolis. When the old Temple estate was
subdivided Mr. Buffum was one of the largest purchasers, and property
that he ihen acquired has since become almost priceless. He once owned
the land where the Coulter dry goods store is now located. He also
owned the corner of Franklin and New High, the corner of 8th and
Spring, a lot on 12th Street between Hill and Olive streets. This last
is now one of the strategic points in the developing business center.
At Jefferson and Main streets, then on the outskirts of Los Angeles, he
owned forty acres, and this has since become the most densely populated
section of Los Angeles.
Mr. Buffum was a Royal Arch Mason and member of the California
Society. His death occurred June 12, 1905, and he was laid to rest
by the Masonic Ordsr. At Los Angeles, September 17, 1864, he married
Miss Rebecca Evans, formerly of Smithfield, Fayette County, Penn-
sylvania. Mrs. Buffum survives her husband, and is one of the most
beloved pioneers of California. Two chfldren were born to their marriage,
Asa Mansfield, now deceased, and one child that died in infancy.
Asa Mansfield Buffum. A .worthy life too early closed brings
regret and sadness, but the influence of such a life as that of the late
Asa Mansfield Buffum abides, and through it men are made more con-
scious of the value sterling integrity and fidelity to duty bear in rounding
out a successful, useful life.
Asa Mansfield Buffum was born at Los Angeles, California, Decem-
ber 25, 1865. His parents were William Mansfield and Rebecca (Evans)
Buffum. His father was one of the early California pioneers, a descend-
ant of a distinguished New England family, and his mother was a Penn-
sylvaninn, whose ancestors immigrated to that colony in the early days
of George III of England.
Mr. Buffum received his early education at Prescott, Arizona, then
a military post on the frontier, whither his father had gone and established
the principnl merchandising business in the territory. The youth's first
principal and teacher was General M. H. Sherman, who later helped make
history in .Arizona, and later still created the transit system of Los
Angeles, Pasadena and Santa Monica Bay district. When Mr. Buff'um
was fifteen years old his parents returned to Los Angeles, where he con-
tinued school attendance and later entered the University of California
under the tutelage of ProfesFor Bovard, one of the distinguished efluca-
tors of the state. The long journey to and from, however, had to be m-'d;
on foot or in the slow-moving vehicles of those days, and this d'fficulty
finally com'^elled Mr. Buffum to give up his work in the university. He
then matriculated at St. Vincent's College, Los Angeles, then under
the direction of the noted Father McGill. From St. Vincent's he entered
a select school for boys maintained by St. Paul's Protestant Cathedral
in Los Angeles. At this period in his life Mr. Buffum decided to fo'low
in the footsteps of his father and seek a commercial career. To fit
himself for this he began a course in the Woodbury Business College,
where he secured a diploma after a year of strenuous study. Soon after
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 57
graduating from that institution he took, without the shghtest prepara-
tion, an examination for the United States postal service, and from a
large number of specially prepared candidates he finished third and soon
after was appointed to a position of trust at the general post office, Los
Angeles. Ihis appointment was the beginning of a career that lasted
throughout j\lr. iJuffum's life, and which, as his passing, won for him
the eulogies of government heads and colleagues.
j\lr. Buffum continued in the general post office for some years
thereafter, until he was appointed to the management of one of the
branches which was then being opened to take care of the business caused
by the rapidly increasing population of the city. Under his direction
was a large force of clerks and carriers. In assisting in establishing
new routes and in perfecting the system of mail deliver}' Mr. Buffum was
considered one of the most able aids in the department of Los Angeles.
He was later appointed to the management of the branch office on Spring
Street, Los Angeles, which office was mainly conducted for the handling
of large money order and registered letter business that came from the
mercantile district of the city. The responsibilities of this post were
probably the largest in the city branch postal service. The coniidence
which i\lr. Buff'um's departmental head imposed in him was given sub-
stantial expression in this important appointment. He remained in charge
of this branch for several years, when he was recalled to the general
post office, but later was placed in charge of the Stahl & Thayer branch,
where' he remained until the time of his death, building up the business
and caring for the rapidly multiplying duties with an honesty of purpose
and regard for duty that won him time and again the praise of his
superiors.
j\lr. Buffum's tragic death abruptly ended one of the most promising
governmental careers in Southern California, and is believed to have
hastened the death of his father, who was one of the best known and
most beloved pioneers of the old west. In October, 1904, Mr. Butfum
accompanied his mother on a trip to White Sulphur Springs in Ventura
County, California. \Miile there the abundance of small game attracted
Mr. Buffum, who was an ardent sportslnan and fond of hunting, and
this led to his accompanying a number of companions into the wilds of
the neighborhood in search of pigeons. The accidental discharge of
one of his companion's guns emptied the gun's contents into the body of
Mr. Buffum. llife lingered six hours afterwards, during which time every
possible effort was made by hastily summoned physicians, but their work
was unavailing. He was but thirty-nine years old at the time of death.
His sterling qualities had marked him throughout his younger life and
during his early manhood as one of the most promising young m.en of
Los Angeles. His even disposition and lofty-minded views on life and
social relations had won the esteem of a large host of friends, who
regrrded him as a worthy descendant of a distinguished father. He was
a member of Ramona Parlor, Native Sons of the Golden West, and not
only took great interest in the rising generation of Californians, but in
the welfare of the superannuated survivors of the early days on the
frontier. His devoted mother yet survives, but his father survived him
only a short time.
Sayre Macneil, a scholarly young lawyer, also well known because
of his associations with various phises of the public welfare in Los
Angeles, is a son of one of the pioneer ranch and town developers in
southern California.
58 LOS ANGELES
His father, the late Hugh Livingstone Macneil, was born in the
town of Wick, Ontario, Canada, August 9, 1850. He received a high
school education and soon afterward went to Chicago, where he was
immediately appointed cashier and auditor of Ingraham, Corbin & May.
In 1876, in Los Angeles, he became connected with the Los Angeles
County Bank as cashier. In 1887 he left the bank and spent four
years in association with his father-in-law, Jonathan Sayre Slauson,
in various land developments. As one of the owners of the Maclay
Rancho, in the San Fernando Valley, he took an active part in develop-
ing and selling the land of the Rancho." The town of San Fernando
stands on this land. He acquired a large acreage where the towns of
Ontario and Upland are located, soon after the Chaffeys had organized
the Ontario colony, and assisted in promoting and establishing both
these now flourishing little cities. Hugh L. Macneil was also asso-
ciated with J. S. Slauson, James Slauson and others in organizing the
Azusa Land and Water Company, which, in April, 1887, established
the town of Azusa. Mr. Macneil, in 1891, took up his residence there
and for the next few years devoted himself to planting orange and
lemon lands, the development and transportation of water from the
San Gabriel Canon, and the early organization of the Southern Cali-
fornia Fruit Exchange. He died in Los Angeles October 21, 1901,
after achieving a high place among southern California pioneers. He
was the first president of the Caledonian Club, one of the early pres-
idents of the California Club of Los Angeles, a charter member of the
Los Angeles Athletic Club, and was also a member of the Creel Club
and of the Sunset Club. He was for four years a state fish and game
commissioner. He was a republican and a Presbyterian. In Los
Angeles, on September 17, 1884, he married Louise Slauson. Of their
two children, the daughter, Marion, is the wife of Captain Bertnard
Smith of Los Angeles.
Sayre Macneil, who was born April 1, 1886, received a public
school education in Los Angeles, Azusa and Pasadena, graduating from
the high school in the latter city in 1903. The following year he spent
abroad in travel, and then, returning to California, entered the Uni-
versity of California, from which he received his degree A. B. in 1908.
Mr. Macneil took his law course in Harvard University Law School,
where he was graduated LL. B. in 1911. He is now associated with the
law firm of O'Melveny, Millikin & Tuller, with offices in the Title In-
surance Building.
December 1, 1917, Mr. Macneil was appointed chairman of the
Department of Conservation of Food Supplies of the United States
Food Administration for California and in June, 1918, head of the En-
forcement Division of the United States Food Administration for Cali-
fornia, and served in that connection until January. 1919. Mr. Mac-
neil is a trustee of Harvard Military School of Los Angeles, is local
corresponding secretary for the Harvard Law School Association, and
while at Harvard was an assistant editor of the Harvard Law Reviezv
in his second year, and editor in chief of the magazine in his third
year. He is a member of the California Club. Los Angeles Athletic
Club, Los Angeles Country Club, and from May, 1915, to November,
1916, served as secretary of the Municipal Charities Commission of
Los Angeles. He is a Republican and a member of the Episcopal
Church.
November 10, 1915, at Los Angeles, he married Daphne Dr;ikf.
Their two children are Maria Antonia and Hugh Livingstone Macneil.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 59
William James Palethorpe. In liis business and profession as cer-
tified public accountant William James Palethorpe has achieved as a result
of many years experience and widely diversified service a leading position
on the Pacific Coast. Mr. Palethorpe has been a resident of California
over thirty years, and since 1905 his home and business headquarters have
been in Los Angeles.
He was born in London, England, August 30, 1860. His father,
John Palethorpe, spent twenty years in the diplomatic service of Great
Britain in France, Italy, Spain and Russia. His mother, Sarah Floyd
Palethorpe, was a great-granddaughter of the Earl of Fairfa.x, and was
noted as an author and poet.
William James Palethori^e attended the Auckland School in Lon-
don, and did his undergraduate work in King's College in that city. On
account of failing liealth he left England in 1887 and visited San I'Van-
cisco. In Ejigland he had come to be regarded as an expert in account-
ing and in America he has specialized in mining practice, his reports
and audits having widely accepted authority both east and west.
After coming to San I'rancisco Mr. Palethorpe located at San Ma-
teo, and for many years taught at St. Matthew's School there. He then
resumed the practice of accounting in San Francisco. While making
reports on the Imperial Valley, representing the Southern Pacific Rail-
road Company and allied interests, the fire and earthc|uake in April,
1906, caused him to change his residence to Los Angeles. His account-
ing practice has been carried on at Los Angeles since that year, but his
clientele is so broad that his practice really extends to the state of
Washington and as far east as Pittsburg.
Mr. Palethorjie is a Republican, is a member of the Los .Angeles
Chamber of C(.)mmerce. the .\utoniobile Club of Southern California,
and IS afiiliated with the Flks, the Knights of Columlius, and is a
Catholic in religion. He is a member of the American Institute of Ac-
countants. June 22, 1890, at San h'rancisco, he married Mary Frances
Dorrity, a daughter of Anthony and Mary Dorrity. She was born at
Belfast, Ireland. Her father, .Anthony Dorrity, was a marine engineer
and in 1870 brought his family from Ireland to New York. After a
few years he left X'ew York for .San Francisco on the maiden voyage
of the steamship George W. Elder around the Horn. The family fol-
lowed him by way of Panama. Anthony Dorrity at the time of his
death in 1912 was the oldest marine engineer in age and service on the
Pacific Coast. He was noted for his ability and devotion to detail and
regarded as the "safest" man in engineering circles. Mr. and Mrs.
Palethorpe have two sons and two daughters, Harold John, Anthony
IHoyd, Ruth Dorothy and Alarie Dolores.
George Ira Cochr.\n. While he began his career as a young lawyer
in Los Angeles thirty years ago, and was identified v.ith a busy law
liractice for nearly two decades, it is as a manager and director of large
financial and business corporations that George Ira Cochran is best
known.
In him have been developed and have come to fruitage many fine
traits and qualities inherited from his ancestry. His father. Rev. George
Cochran, D. D., was a prominent Methodist minister and missionary.
Mr. Cochran's mother, Catherine Lynch Davidson, was a descendant of
the Wesleys, founders of Methodism.
George Ira Cochran was born at Oshawa, Ontario. Canada, July 1,
1863. When he was se\en years old his father went to lapan, and lived
60 , LOS ANGELES
in the Orient engaged in missionary and other church work for six years.
While at Tokyo, George Ira Cochran attended private schools. After
his father returned to Toronto he completed his education in the Col-
legiate Institute and the University of Toronto, and studied law in Osgood
Hall. He was admitted as Barrister at Law .shortly after his graduation,
and in 1888 came to Los Angeles and was admitted to practice in the
Sufjreme Court of California in Februaiy of th;it year. Mr. Cochran
practiced law until 1906.
Since then the responsibilities of many business organizations have
claimed practically all his attention. In 1906 he becaine president of
the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, one of the oldest and
largest insurance organizations in the West. The Pacific Mutual is
today listed among the foren:ost old line American companies, and its
business has been extended practically across the continent. Mr. Cochran
has supervised and directed the investment of millions of dollars of this
company's assets, and to a large degree has been responsible for the
enviable record the company has made.
Many other organizations claim soine share of his ability and time.
He is a director of the Southern California Edison Company, Los
Angeles Trust and Savings Bank, Rosedale Cemetery Association, Home
Fire and Marine Company and Anglo California Trust Company of San
Francisco, Citizens Trust and Savings Bank, Seaside Water Company,
Long Beach Bath House and Amus ment Company, California Delta
Farms (Incorporated), and many others. Mr. Cochran is a regent of
the University of California Jtnd a trustee of the University of Southern
California. He served as a member of the Los Aug les City Charter
Commission of 1893. He has served as a member of the Republican
County Central Committee, as a trustee of the Young Men's Christian
Association, and is a member of the California, Jonathan, University,
Los Angeles Athletic, Midv/ick Countr}', Los Angeles Country and Union
League Clubs, and the Pacific Union and Bohemian Clubs of San Fran-
cisco. He is a member of the Methodist Church.
August 6, 1890, Mr. Cochran married Miss Alice Maud McClung of
Canada. April 7, 1907, he married for his second wife her sister, Isa-
bella May McClung.
G.ML Borden Johnson. In these modern days whene there are, un-
fortunately, so many individuals who prove unworthy to the trust re-
posed in them, it is gratifying to review the career of one who always
kept his life free from contaminating influences, no matter what his sur-
roundings, and was fearless in his support of what he d emed was right.
Unfortunately for his community, the late Gail Borden Johnson, of Los
Angeles, was never called to high office in the public service. Had he
been given the opportunity to bring to bear upon the administration of
civic affairs his keen conviction of justice and high moral sense, those
coming under his influence would have benefited and politics would h 've
been purified. However, the life of such a man is never lived in vain.
Although his sphere was largely confined to the field of life insurance, he
did his full duty and gave his world a saner, clean:r viewpoint.
Gail Borden Johnson was born near Richmond, Texas, the eldest
of six children, November 11, 1859. He is survived by his aged father,
the other children, his widow and three dau-'hters. In young manhood
he removed to Houston, Texas, where in 1878 he became the founder
of the Houston Post, and published that paper for several years. Sub-
sequently he removed to Elgin, Illinois, where he became secretary of
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 61
the Illinois Condensing Company, now known as the Borden Condensed
Milk Lonipany. Gail Uordcn, who invented the process of condensing
milk and was the founder of the company which has made this product
known the world over, was his maternal grandfather and gave him his
name. 'Air. Johnson first came to California in 1S88, and for a number
of years was engaged very successfully in the real estite and building
business at Los Angeles. In 1900 he became vice-president of the Ger-
man American Savings Bank, now the Guaranty Trust and Savings Bank,
which position he resigned when he became vice-president and treasurer
of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1906.
During the last twelve years of his life Mr. Johnson labored most
assiduously and with great ability in and for his company. He was
wrapped up in its work and look the greatest pleasure therein. When
President George I. Cochran took in hand the consolidation of the Con-
servative Life Insurance Company and the Pacific Life Insurance Com-
pany and the reorganization of the enlarged company in 1906, Mr.
Johnson was closely associated with him. Together they assumed the
responsibility involved, and made and put through all the necessary plans
for the successful consummation of the undertaking. Neither one aspired
to the presidency, and while only one could be president of the company,
in a very real sense the Pacific Mutual had two heads. The perfect
harmony in which these two leaders worked together was of the greatest
benefit to the institution, and it is doubtful if a parallel can be found
in the history of life insurance where two men of such decided individu-
ality, strong convictions and marked ability have together headed a
corporation and worked in such perfect concord.
The one department to which Mr. Johnson gave special attention
was the agency department. While he never assumed the title, he was
superintendent of agencies, and in this office came into direct contact
with the men in the field. How well he discharged the duties of his
office the field men welj know. He had a keen sense of justice, and
when he felt that he was in the rio-ht exemplified the courage of his
own convictions by refusing to be dislodged from any position which he
took. As a good executive he never lost sight of the interests of the
company, yet also he never forgot the best interests of the agents and
was always thinking and planning for their good. He injected such a
wholesome spirit into all that he did that business deliberations between
man and man seemed rather the kindly dealings between friend and
friend. This was always evidenced at the Home Ofifice, where he kept
in close touch with much of the detail of the life business, as effecting
the agents and agency matters. He was continually sought in consul-
tation and his careful attention was given to matters of seemingly trifling
importance as readily as to those of the gravest concern. His office was
always open to anyone who sought his advice and his cordial greeting
and kindly manner made all feel at home in his presence. In all his
bearing he was more an intimate friend, a big-hearted brother, than a
head executive of the company.
Mr. Johnson's years of successful experience in the real estate and
banking business gave him a peculiar fitness for assisting in the manage-
ment of the financial interests and investments of the company, to which
he gave a good deal of attention. He was a wise and safe counselor
and his judgment was valued highly by the other executives of the com-
pany. He made the appraisements and placed the company's loans in
certain sections, particularly in his native state of Texas. As an evidence
62 LOS ANGELES
of his ability and good judgment in that connection, of the several
millions of dollars invested by him in Texas not a single loan gave the
company any trouble.
While primarily and distinctively a business man. Air. Johnson had
literary gifts of no mean character, his work in this connection being
principally done in adding to the literature of the company wfith which
he was identified. An indication of his gifts in this direction may be
presented as an example: "Building the Pacific Mutual. Out of a vision
of usefulness came the Pacific Mutual fifty years ago. High ideals
caused those great men to lay the foundation deep and strong — befitting
the superstructure which was to stand for all time, — a tower of strength, —
protecting fortress for coming generations. A building, even the most
stately cathedral, can be completely finished, every arch and column
architecturally perfect, but ours is a building that is never finished, — a
building not made with hands. Each successive management must add
its stone — a stone cut from the cjuarry of service and polisher! with
aspiration toward perfection. Twelve years ago the present management
was called to that quarry and at once determined to serve its generation
well and faithfully. Our ambition is that others who come after us,
when they look at the stone we leave, may find that it squares with : A
profound sense of responsibility, reaching not only to policy holders, but
to agents, employes and the public ; an effort to give the greatest amount
of protection for the least amount of money ; only a few rules, with in-
sistence upon those few, including the one called Golden; honesty,
courtesy, efficiency, with a sincere desire to serve ; hearty approval of
state supervision ; loyalty to our country and its laws."
The following Resolutions, adopted by Air. Johnson and exemplified
by him in his everyday life, strike one of the strong notes of his character :
"This day shall be my best if honest effort will make it so. I expect to
meet disappointment, annoyances and possibly rebuffs, but I shall try
to look upon all hindrances as a part of the day's work, put there to be
overcome. I expect also to meet success, because I am out after it. I
shall be cheerful, earnest and persevering, honestly representing Pacific
Mutual policies to men who -need them. Whatever may be the result
of this day's work I shall seek my bed at night with the consciousness
that not one hour was wasted and that I did the best I could."
Mr. Johnson's work was of a nature that kept him busily engaged,
yet he always found time to assist in outside interests. He was for
more than twenty years a trustee of the University of Southern Cali-
fornia, an advisory director of the Young Women's Christian Association
of Los Angeles from its organization, a trustee of the McKinley Boy's
Home, a director in several banks, a member of the Capital Issues Com-
mittee of the Twelfth Federal District, and actively connected with various
other organizations and interests. While always willing to do his full
share in every worthy form of work where he could assist, he never
sought office and was too modest to aspire to numerous other high
offices easily within his reach. He was a great lover of his home and
the family circle, and was not a clubman in the sense that some men are,
yet he enjoyed the companionship of his fellows and held membership
in several leading clubs, including the California Club, Midwick Country
Club and the Bolsa Chica Gun Club, which are located at or near Los
Angeles, and the Bohemian Club of San Francisco. He was a member
of the Methodist church, in which he did much work during his life
and to which he gave his liberal support. His benefactions were numerous
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 63
and totaled a large sum, but were always given without ostentation and
were usually known only to himself and the recipient.
In September, 1918, Mr. Johnson went to New York City to attend
the annual convention of the National Association of Life Underwriters,
apparently in the best of health. He was in excellent spirits and en-
thusiastic in his numerous plans for the agency work of the company,
and looked forward with much pleasure to his trip and to the opportunity
to associate again for a few days with many of the Pacific Mutual agents,
who were always close to his heart. The day following the close of
the convention, September 7, 1918, while returning to his hotel from
breakfast, he was seized with an attack of heart trouble and expired
in about ten minutes without regaining consciousness. The remains
were brought back to Los Angeles by his friends, and funeral services
were held at the home, September 12, interment being made at San
Gabriel Cemetery, among the orange groves and not far from Alhambra,
where Mr. Johnson once resided. On the day of the funeral the follow-
ing tribute was paid to Air. Johnson in an editorial which appeared in
the Los Angeles Daily Times:
" 'The time demands strong minds, great hearts, true
faith and willing hands.' Uf these was Gail B. Johnson, who is borne
to his last resting place today ; and it is difficult for those who knew him
best to understand why he was taken. God's over all; and we must
have faith — and we do — but we shall miss Gail B. Johnson. We shall
iniss him in the work the time demands — miss the strong, great-hearted,
willing, kindly man of the hour, whose joy it was to be of service to his
fellows. He was one of the makers of Los Angeles and one of the type
of men the nation relies on today in its period of stress. He was honored
in life and long will his memory be an inspiration to his associates and
friends. The good he has done will surely live after him — that is the
message the last rites over his mortal remains will convey to those
who pause to think of him and his busy life today."
William Francis Ireland. To call William Francis Ireland a ver-
satile man is hardly to do justice to the earnest and efficient service he has
rendered in many forms of social, religious and community work and
various business organizations. Mr. Ireland is an ordained minister of
the Gospel, one time on the stage, is well versed in the law, though he has
never been formally admitted to practice in California, and has a consum-
mate ability as an organizer and in handling the complicated interests of
business men acting in groups and in association movements.
Mr. Ireland was born at Chatham in extreme eastern Massachu-
setts, on the Cape, August 9, 1876. He is a son of Nathan B. and Rhoda
Ella (Rogers) Ireland. Both parents were born on the Massachusetts
Cape. His mother traced her ancestry directly to Thomas and Joseph
Rogers, who came over on the Mayflower. The Ireland tamily came
to the United States from Scotland, first landing at Egg Harbor in
New Jersey. William F. Ireland has the relationship of third cousin
to the late Bishop Ireland qf St. Paul. His grandfather, John Ireland,
was born ,at Egg Harbor. Nathan B. Ireland was born at East Har-
wick, Massachusetts, while his wife was born at South Orleans in the
same vicinity, and they were married there and Mrs. Nathan Ireland
still lives at South Orleans. Nathan Ireland spent most of his life in
the real estate business, and his business career required his residence
at different intervals at Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago,
and he died while on a business trip to Milwaukee. As a boy he learned
64 LOS ANGELES
the life of the sea under his father, who was captain and owner of sev-
eral fishing schooners. The boy himself commanded a fishing schooner
for his father. Nathan Ireland was a very active man in the repub-
lican party m the different cities where he lived, but never aipired for
public office. He and his wife had three children, William F. being the
second. The older daughter, Mrs. Harold Scott, lives with her mother,
and the younger daughter is Mrs. Harry Palmer of Valley Stream,
Long Island.
William F. Ireland was educated in Massachusetts and also at-
tended public school in Philadelphia. After school he went on the stage
as a vaudeville actor, also took some part in drama, and at one time had
a minor role with Henry Irving. For three and a half years ne gave all
his time to the study of medicine in the New York Medical School, but
before completing his course and beginning practice became diverted
into religious lines, and in October, 1899, was ordained a minister of
the Baptist church in New York City. His special forte was evange-
listic work, and as the "actor evangelist" became known all over the
country. Mr. Ireland located at Los Angeles in January, 1905, and
continued his religious work for several years. For about three years
he was pastor of the Union Church at La Canada in Los Angeles
county, holding regular services there each Sunday for a year, and also
building a parsonage and establishing the church in a sound financial
condition. He also took the lead in the movement which brought about
the building of the Highland Park Baptist Church. As a speaker on
religious and secular themes Mr. Ireland has been heard all over south-
ern California. At the request of' Bishop Mclntire and the pastors of
other denominations and California business men he took upon himself
the responsibility of organizing what was known as the Sunday Rest
League. This brought Mr. Ireland into a new profession when they
secured his services for legal and collection work. Since the close of
1915 he has been secretary of the Los Angeles Cafe and Restaurant
Men's Protective ssociation. When the food administration came
about as a result of the war, Mr. Ireland and Vernon Goodwin of the
Alexandria Hotel were appointed local food administrators over the
hotels and restaurants of southern California, the state administrator,
Ralph Merritt, leaving practically all the responsibilities in the hinds of
Mr. Ireland. Some change of duties were subsequently made, but Mr.
Ireland continued during the war as direct representative of the Food
Administration over the hotels and restaurants.
Mr. Ireland is secretary-chairman of the Southern California
Wholesale and Retail Bakers' Association, whose jurisdiction covers ten
southern California counties. In July, 1918, Mr. Ireland called a con-
vention of retail bakers in Chicago and was elected second vice president
of the Retail Bakers' Association of America, representing the interests
of these business men in the United States and Canada. He is also an
advisor on nearly all the committees of this organization. He is now
secretary of the Restaurant Men's Association of Los Angeles, is ad-
visory chairman of the Restaurant Men's' Association of San Diego,
San Luis Obispo and Kern counties, and acts in an advisory capacity
for the organization of similar associations in other counties of south-
ern California. He is a member of the Conference Committee of the
Bakers' Industry and is district secretary of both the S^n DieL'o and
Los Angeles divisions of the California section of the National Bakers'
Service Committee. In addition to all these duties he writes for three
bakers' papers and three restaurant publications.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 65
Mr. Ireland was appointed chaplain of a regiment organized for
service in the Spanish-American war, but the command was never called
into active service. In 1918 he was candidate for city councilman at
large in Los Angeles. In politics he is strictly independent. He is a
member of the Union League, the First Baptist Church of Los An-
geles, and has the honor of being the first Police Court public defender
in the United States. For four years by appointment he served as city-
public defender without pay, at the end of which time the City Council
created the office of City Police Court Defender.
June 6, 1901, at Bridgetown, New York, Mr. Ireland married Jean
W. Campbell, who was born and reared in Bridgetown. They have
two children: William Francis, Jr., born July 23, 1903, at Bridgetown,
and Helen B.. who was born at Kansas City, Missouri. Mr. Ireland and
family reside at 4030 Dalton avenue.
Erwin Wilson Widney, city prosecutor of Los Angeles, has enjoyed
uuich prominence in the bar and in politics during his comparatively
brief career.
Mr. \Vidney was born in Los Angeles, at the corner of Fourth and
Olive streets, December 31, 1888. His father, William W. Widney,
and his mother, Elizabeth Serrot, were both pioneers of southern Cali-
fornia. His father was born in Pickaway, Ohio, and his mother in
Springfield, Illinois. It was in 1861, at the beginning of the Civil war,
that the Serrot family and William W. Widney came to California. The
Serrots made their first efforts to cross the plains in a prairie schooner.
On account of the hostility of Indians at the beginning of the Civil
war they turned back and finally reached California by the Panama
route. On the same boat which brought the Serrot family William W.
Widney was a passenger, but he did not make the acquaintance of the
daughter Elizabeth at that time. During the voyage to California the
boat was chased by a Confederate cruiser. William W. Widney was
about seventeen years old when he came to California, where he joined
his brother. Dr. ]. P. Widney, who had previously established himself
in practice at Santa Qara. Soon afterward he was stricken with ty-
phoid fever at the old Bella Union Hotel, and it was during that critical
(jeriod in his life that he met Elizabeth Serrot. W. W. Widney and
wife are still living in Los Angeles. They were the parents of five
children: Mrs. Paul Pauly, of Los Angeles: Mrs. Sidney N. Reeve,
wife of Judge Sidney N. Reeve of the Superior Court of Los Angeles';
Mrs. Shirley E. Brewer, of Chicago; Erwin W. ; and Joseph P., who
died at the age of seventeen.
Erwin W. Widney attended the public schools, being in the old
30th School when Bettinger was principal. He graduated from the Los
Angeles High School with the class of 1908 and took his law course
in the University of southern California. He was admitted to the Cali-
fornia bar September 27. 1911. By appointment from Judge Sidney
N. Reeve he served as clerk of the Justice Court two years and then
took up active private practice with Spencer Thorpe, under the name
of Thorpe & Widney, for two years. Warren Williams then appointed
him deputy city prosecutor and later made him assistant city prosecu-
tor. May 22,- 1917, Mr. W^idney became city prosecutor under appoint-
ment from Mayor Woodman.
Mr. Widney is regarded as one of the most influential members of
the Republican party in Los Angeles. He is affiliated with Arlington
Lodge No. 414. A. F. and A. M.. at Los .\ngeles, the Phi Delta Phi
66 LOS ANGELES
legal fraternity, and Ramona Parlor, Native Sons of the Golden West.
He and his family reside at 963 Menlo avenue. November 12, 1912, he
married Miss Marjorie E. Utley, of Los Angeles, daughter of Dr. J. H.
Utley, who was one of the pioneer physicians of the city. Mrs. Widney
is a native daughter, born and educated in Los Angeles, being a gradu-
ate of the Marlboro School for Girls. They have one son, William
Hathaway, named for his two grandfathers. He was born April
18, 1914.
Captain Spencer Roane Thorpe. Southern California was the
home during the last twenty odd years of his life of one of the true sons
of the south, a gallant Confederate soldier and officer, who exemplified
all the fine qualities of the real southern gentleman in the person of the
late Captain Spencer Roane Thorpe. For a number of years he lived in
Los Angeles, but had interests outside the city, particularly in the fruit
growing district of Ventura county.
He was born at Louisville, Kentucky, January 20, 1842. He was
the great-great-grandson of Patrick Henry, of Hanover county, Virginia,
who served as captain of the first company organized for service in the
Revolutionary war. Captain Thorpe acquired his education in St.
Joseph's College at Bardstown, Kentucky, and at the age of nineteen,
at the very outset of the war between the states, he volunteered his
services to the Confederate government. He enlisted at Corinth, Miss-
issippi, in April, 1861, in the 16th Mississippi Infantry. He was wounded
in the battle of Drainsville,, Virginia, December 20, 1861. At the expira-
tion of his term of service he re-enlisted in a company of the Second
Kentucky Cavalry, of which General John H. Morgan was colonel and
Basil VV. Duke, lieutenant-colonel. He held the rank of first lieutenant
in Morgan's forces in the raid through Lidiana. He was seriously
wounded at Corydon July 9, 1863, was left on the field for dead and as
a prisoner of war was exchanged at Johnson's Island in October, 1864.
He then returned to his regiment, under the command of General Duke,
and was a captain when his command surrendered at Woodstock,
Georgia, May 10, 1865. Of his service General Duke says : "As the com-
mander of that regiment for nearly two years and subsequently of the
brigade of which it was a part, and having an intimate personal acquaint-
ance with Captain Thorpe from the time he joined it, I can testify to
the character of his service therewith. He took part in almost every
important raid and expedition, and in nearly every battle in which the
regiment was engaged. He served with conspicuous gallantry and intelli-
gence and was twice wounded. He was promoted to lieutenant of his
comp-iny and upon the promotion of Captain Messick near the close of
the war he became virtually captain of the company and was in command
of it."
After the war Captain Thorpe located at Marksville, Louisiana, where
he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1867. He quickly acquired
a professional practice consistent with his unusual attainments and ability.
He also served a term as district attorney for the Seventh Judicial Dis-
trict. He w?s in the active practice of law at Louisiana until 18S3. He
was one of the trustees of the Louisiana State University.
In 1877 Captain Thorpe had become fascinated with the possibilities
of investment and development of southern California, and after closing
up his .-^ff^irs in Louisiana returned to the state to make it his permanent
home in 1883. He was admitted to the bar of California but never
engaged in practice, giving his time to his investments and fruit culture
^■(71. <^h.<y7pJL.^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 67
For several years he lived on one of his properties near Ventura, and in
1889 established a home in Los Angeles. He was a resident of Los
Angeles the rest of his life, though he died in Ventura county September
1, 1905.
Captain Thorpe never aspired to any public ofifice during his resi-
dence in California. However, he served as brigadier general of the
Pacific Division of the United Confederate Veterans for three terms
and was one of the best loved members of the Sam Davis Camp of
that order from the date of its organization in Los Angeles. He was
also a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Society
of Colonial Wars.
Captain Thorpe married Helena Barbin, at Marksville, Louisiana,
January 20, 1868. She survives him, with home at 971 Menlo avenue,
Los Angeles, and all of their children are still living: Mrs. Edwin J.
Riche and Mrs. Harry L. Dunnigan, and Andrew Roane, Spencer G. and
Carlyle Thorpe.
Robert M. Clarke. A former judge of the Superior Court, Robert
M. Clarke has had a busy professional and public career since early man-
hood.
A native of California, he was born near Santa Paula in Ventura
county March 5, 1879. His father, Robert M. Clarke, Sr., was born at
Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in 1825, and came to California around the
Horn to San Francisco in 1850, thence going to Suisun, where he was
a miner and lumberman. In 1876 he moved into Ventura county and
engaged in sheep raising and bee culture until his death in 1883. He
married in 1871 Cynthia A. Corey. Their children were: Mrs. Clar-
ence Beckley, of Santa Paula ; Mrs. J. R. Cauch, of Santa Paula ; and
Robert M. Clarke.
The son attended grammar and high school at Santa Paula, gradu-
ating from! the latter in 1897, and studied law in private offices there
until he was admitted to the bar in 1900. The same year he was elected
a member of the Legislature, and was the youngest member in the fol-
lowing session. He began practice at Santa Paula and was its first city
attorney. He moved from there to Ventura, and in 1908, at the age of
twenty-nine, was elected judge of the Superior Court. Judge Clarke
gave every satisfaction as a jurist, but in 1914 declined re-election and
returned to private practice, with offices in Los Angeles. As a judge
he had an exceptional record for cases affirmed on appeal, and since his
retirement from the bench he has actively participated in much im-
portant litigation. He is a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of
the United States.
He is a Mason and is past grand trustee of the Native Sons of the
Golden West. He is a member of the California Club, the Los Angeles
Athletic Club, the Union League Club and in politics is a republican.
At Carpinteria in Santa Barbara county December 27, 1900, he married
Edna Thurmond. They have four children : Thurmond, aged sixteen,
a student in the Los Angeles High School ; Robert and Rosamond,
twins, born in 1908, both students in the public schools ; and Sue, born
in 1913.
A. C. Balch has been an electrical engineer for thirty years, a pe-
riod almost covering the history of modern electrical development. For
over twenty years he has been a resident of Los Angeles, and has fur-
nished both technical and administrative services in the organization
68 LOS ANGELES
and development of some of the best known utility corporations in this
part of the state.
Allan Christopher Balch was bom at Valley Falls, New York,
March 13, 1864, a son of Ebenezer Atwood and Hannah (Hoag) Balch.
His early education was supplied by the Valley Falls schools until he
was ten, after which he attended school at Cambridge, New York, and
from there entered Cornell University. He graduated with the degree
Mechanical Engineer in electrical engineering in 1889. Mr. Balch at
once transferred his field of effort to the northwest. At Seattle, Wash-
ington, he was engaged in general engineering practice and was general
manager for the Union Electric Company until 1891. From 1891 to
1896 he was general manager and then lessee of the Union Power Com-
pany of Portland, Oregon.
Coming to Los Angeles in 1890, Air. IJalch in 1897 joined Mr. W.
G. Kerckhotf in the organization of the San Gabriel Electric Company.
Mr. Balch occupied the position of general manager of the San Gabriel
Electric Company and of the Pacific Light & Power Company. He had
the distinction of installing the first long-distance electric power line in
Los Angeles. Other achievements to his credit were putting in ihe Big
Creek Power Plant at Fresno, the Kern River plant, Redondo steam
plant and a number of others. He was instrumental in developing
electric power for pumping for irrigation, and for drilling and pumping
oil wells.
In 1902 Mr. Balch, with William G. Kerckhofif, Kaspare Cohn and
A. Haas, acquired the San Joaquin Electric Plant at Fresno and or-
ganized the San Joaquin Power Company, which company was reorgan-
ized in 1905 under the name of the San Joaquin Light and Power Com-
pany and again in 1910 reorganized under the name of the San Joaquin
Light & Power Corporation.
Mr. Balch, with the same associates, in 1909 organized the Coalinga
Water & Electric Company, which was changed later to the Midland
Counties Public Service Corporation.
With his associates, after withdrawing from the Pacific Light &
Power Corporation in 1913, Mr. Balch took over the Southern Cali-
fornia Gas Company, and with his associates installed the Midway Gas
Company, owning a controlling interest in the same.
Mr. Balch is president of the Midland Counties Public Service Cor-
poration, Lerdo Land Company, Fresno City Water Company, Bakers-
field & Kern Electric Railway Company, Kearney Boulevard Heights
Company, Power Transit & Light Company and San Joaquin Holding
Company, and vice president of the Southern California Gas Company,
Midway Gas Company, San Joaquin Light & Power Corporation and
Summit Lake Investment Company.
He is an Alpha Delta Phi, a thirty-second degree Scottish Rile and
Knights Templar Mason, a Shriner, a Republican and a member of
the California, Los Angeles Athletic, Los Angeles Country, Midwick
Country and Crags Country Clubs of Los Angeles, the Sequoia Club of
Fresno, the Pacific LTnion and Bohemian Clubs of San Francisco, is a
director of the Southern California Auto Club of Los Angeles, a mem-
ber of the Sleepy Hollow Country Club of New York. April 29, 1891,
Mr. Balch married Miss Janet Jacks, daughter of David Jacks of Mon-
terey, California.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 69
William A. Paris is one of the men who has earned a conspicuous
success in mercantile affairs at Los Angeles. He had made hnr.self a
trusted and efficient assistant to several other local merchants before he
started upon his independent career, and in the past fourteen years has
developed the Faris-Walker Company into one of the greatest mer-
cantile firms on the Pacific Coast.
Mr. Paris was born at Darien, Connecticut, November 1, 1872, son
of Alexander C. and Annie J. Paris. His father, a native of the north
of Ireland, caine at an early age to the United States, locating at Darien,
Connecticut, where he was in the grocery and dry goods business until
his death. After his decease his widow managed the store and business
until 1903, when she came to Los Angeles to make her home with her son.
William A. Paris graduated from high school at the age of sixteen,
and the following five years he was employed in the accounting depart-
ment and cost department of the Yale and Towne IManufacturing Com-
pany, lock manufacturers, at Stanford, Connecticut. That early training
with one of the best known organizations of the country served him
well in his later career.
On coming to Los Angeles Mr. Paris was for several years asso-
ciated with two of the largest dry goods merchants in the city as book-
keeper and later as financial manager. In 1905 he resigned and in con-
junction with Mr. R. M. Walker formed the Paris-Walker Company
and established the 5th street store at 5th and Broadway, Los Angeles,
California.
Their first store was 60x120 feet. They started with a hundred
employes, and the volume of business the first year ran close to a million
dollars. Soon after they acquired an adjoining store, 20x120 feet, and
gradually increased the floor space until today the organization occupies
four buildings with a total selling space of over 125,000 feet. From seven
hundred to one thousand people are employed in the business, which runs
into several millions of dollars annually.
Mr. Paris is well known in the social and civic afifairs of Los Angeles.
He is a member of South Gate Lodge, P. and A. M., Pacific Chapter,
O. E. S., Los Angeles Commander}^ No. 9, K. T., all the Scottish Rite
bodies and the Shrine. He is also an Elk, a member of the Los Angeles
Athletic Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Gamut Club, Y. M. C. A.,
Automobile Club of Southern California, Chamber of Commerce, Mer-
chants and Manufacturers' Association, and in politics is a republican.
At Los- Angeles May 29, 1915, he married Alice E. Hynes. He occupies
a spacious home in Laurel Canon during the summer months and resides
at one of the large city hotels in winter.
William P. Butte was one of the founders and is secretary and gen-
eral manager of the Pacific Portable Construction Company. This
company is probably the most prominent on the Pacific Coast manu-
facturing and selling the widely popular "Ready-Cut and Factory-Built"
houses, bungalows, garages and other types of buildings. The develop-
ment of this type of standard construction is regarded by experts as
one of the longest steps forward in reducing building cost, making for
economy in the construction of lumber products, and solving many of
the problems of housing, one of the most vital needs of our coun-
try today.
The following statement concerning the development and an ex-
planation of the business has a particular interest and is appropriately
included in this publication.
70 LOS ANGELES
About fifteen years ago the Pacific Portable Construction Company
was established for the purpose of manufacturing sectional or portable
houses, and before many years a large business was built up for this class
of structure.
About three years ago however, the Pacific Portable Construction
Company felt that their scope of business should be enlarged to include the
manufacture of houses of a permanent type as well as those of a portable
type. The outcome of their early efforts has been the perfecting of
what is known as the Ready-Cut System, and at the present time three-
quarters of the demand for houses is for the Ready-Cut type.
Ready-Cut means, as the phrase implies, lumber ready-cut at the
mill, notched, marked and prepared ready for nailing into place. When
Ready-Cut material is ordered the pieces are not nailed together at
the mill in sections, as is the case when a portable house is ordered, but
instead the pieces are sent in finished lengths to destination. It is
claimed that from ten per cent to fifty per cent carpenter labor, ten per
cent to twenty-five per cent lumber and several weeks' time can be saved
by buying Ready-Cut material. The Pacific Portable Construction Com-
pany has systematized the manufacture of houses much in the same way
as the manufacturers of automobiles have carried out their plans. The
lumber is ordered in cargo shipments direct from the forest cutters.
Hardware, paints, roofing, etc., are purchased in carload quantities at
costs which are as low as any broker of material could secure. In this
way several intermediate profits are eliminated to the customer's benefit.
Big batteries of machinery cut the material at lightning speed with a
resultant big saving in labor, and by a process of critical inspection every
bit of material that is shipped is the finest grade possible to obtain.
At the present time there are more than five thousand Pacific Ready-
Cut Houses standing in the southwest, and there are perhaps as many
more Pacific Factory-Built Houses, the latter being of portable type.
Full details about the Ready-Cut system are given in a ten-thousand
dollar book of designs issued by the company. This book illustrates
close to a hundred modern day designs, and each design is accompanied
by a miniature blue print floor plan. /
Mr. Butte when he first came to southern California was in the
roofing business. He was born at Steubenville, Ohio, May 3, 1881, a
son of John C. Butte. He was in public schools to the age of fourteen,
then spent three years learning the upholstering trade, and after attend-
ing business college for a year became assistant superintendent of Hartje
Brothers' paper mill. He vras with that concern eight years and then
came to Los Angeles and was superintendent for the Pioneer Paper
Company two years.
Resigning, he and F. W. Barker organized the Pacific Portable Con-
struction Company, which is incorporated, and its home offices are at
1330 South Hill street. Mr. Barker is president, and Mr. Butte secretary,
treasurer and general manager. The business started with only six em-
ployes. At the present time the organization requires the services of a
hundred eighty-two people. During the company's first year the output
was one house per week. Today they make the houses complete or the
materials therefor for five to fifteen houses per day.
Mr. Butte is a York Rite Mason and Shriner, a member of the
Los Angeles Athletic Club, Rotary Club, is a republican and a Metho-
dist. He married at Toronto, Ohio, on September 27, 1904, to Jennie
F. Myers. They have four children : Myers Persohn, born in 1905,
attending high school: William F., born in 1912, in the grammar school;
Robert J., born in 1915; and Donald Neil, born in 1917.
yy>-a>*^,^^^
'>'^--^-^'-'-^o
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 71
Frank Wiggins. Connected with the Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce since its infancy, and its secretary for twenty-two years, dur-
ing this period there has been no more valuable or more indefatigable
worker in behalf of the industries and institutions of the city and state
than Frank Wiggins. To the duties of his important position he has
brought executive ability of the highest constructive character, combining
splendid organizing capacity with enthusiasm which has its foundation in
a sincere belief in his city, and his entire career has been one which has
reflected credit upon Los Angeles and the movements and enterprises
which have contributed to its greatness.
Mr. Wiggins was born JNovember 8, 1849, at Richmond, Indiana,
a son of Charles O. and Mary (Marshall) Wiggins. He received his
education in the schools of the Society of Friends, of which his parents
were members, and his early business training came as a result of his
connection with his father's extensive saddlery industry at Richmond.
After assuming the management of this business he conducted it suc-
cessfully until 1886, in which year failing health made it advisable that
he seek another climate, and he accordingly came to Los Angeles, which
city has continued to be his home. By February, 1889, he had recovered
his health sufficiently to re-enter business, and at that time became iden-
tified with the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, then in its infancy.
His abilities were soon recognized by his fellow-members, and in 1890
he was made superintendent of the Chamber, this appointment being
followed two years later by his election as secretary, a position which
he has since held. He was first in charge of the exhibits for the Cham-
ber, a position in which he became a recognized expert, and some of the
exhibits which he handled were: The Orange Carnival, Chicago, 1891;
Southern California display. World's Columbian Exposition, Cliicago,
1893; Midwinter I'air. Atlanta. 1894; Los Angeles exhibit at Omaha,
1896; and Los Angeles exhibit at Bufifalo, 1901. Mr. Wiggins and
James A. Filcher were California Commissioners to the St. Louis
World's Fair in 1904, and held the same commissions to the Alaska-
Yukon Exposition in 1909. Mr. Wiggins was state commissioner to
the Lewis & Clark Exposition, and at the Jamestown Exposition repre-
sented the Los Angeles county exhibit. He also estabhshed the perma-
nent Southern California exhibit at Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1905,
and played an important part in the exposition at San Francisco in 1915.
On May 5, 1886, Mr. Wiggins was united in marriage with
Amanda P. Wiggins, of Los Angeles.
Raymond M. Stagg. In former years a well-known staff photog-
rapher with some of the leading newspapers of the coast, Raymond M.
Stagg has developed a flourishing business as a commercial photographer
at Los Angeles, and has furnished illustrative material for commercial
purposes and the movie stage covering practically everything of interest in
the southern part of the state.
Mr. Stagg was born at Stockton, California, January 9, 1886, son
of Thomas and Julia (Robbins) Stagg. Hi? father was born at Santa
Cruz, California, in 1849. This indicates that the family were among
the true California pioneers. Thomas Stagg was educated in his birth
town and for several years worked in his father's harness shop. He
was in business in that line at Modesto, and finally established a harness
business at Manteca, where he is still living and active.
Raymond M. Stagg attended public school to the age of fifteen and
spent the next two years herding cattle in Merced County. From there
72 LOS ANGELES
he entered Mark Hopkins Art Institute at San Francisco. He also
attended Best's Art Institute at San Francisco for a year. He was
with the art department of the San Francisco Chronicle one year, then
was photographer with the Bulletin two years, and in a similar capacity
with the Examiner three years. This experience was varied by one
year of work in the mines at Kennett, California, and from there he
came to Los Angeles, spending three months as photographer for the
Times. After an absence of three months at Denver, he returned to
Los Angeles and worked in a lumber yard, carrying lumber for three
months. For six months he was a photographer with the Times, and
was employed in a similar capacity by the Herald for three years. With
that experience behind him, Mr. Stagg engaged as a commercial pho-
tographer for himself, and has acquired a large and well-equipped
studio and has made a splendid success of the business. He furnishes
commercial photographs for all lines of industry.
He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Ad Club and the
Automobile Club of Southern California. At Los Angeles, April 16,
1910, he married Ruth Davidson. They have two children: Dick, born
in 1912, and a student in the pubHc schools, and Brett, born in 1917.
Thomas Samuel Reynolds. Necessarily the business of life goes
on even though hearts may break and friends mourn over the early pass-
ing of one seemingly so indispensable, so buoyant and vigorous, so kind,
generous and gentle, as was the late Thomas Samuel Reynolds, of Los
Angeles. Within the short circle of his life of but thirty years he had
accomplished much in an honorable profession and won confidence in
public office, while a particularly sunny disposition invited affection and
sterling characteristics cemented friendship.
Thomas Samuel Reynolds was bom at San Francisco, California,
December 12, 1888, and passed out of life at his home on South Ardmore
street, Los Angeles, November 16, 1918. His parents were Thomas A.
and Kate M. (Greene) Reynolds. His father, who died May 11, 1919,
came to San Francisco in 1868, where he became well known in the
leather business, having established one of the first tanneries for light
leather. He came to Los Angeles in 1891. where he bought a tannery.
The mother of Mr. Reynolds was educated in the schools of San Fran-
cisco and afterward was a teacher there.
Mr. Reynolds practically spent his entire life at Los Angeles. His
early education was secured in the public schools and in 1909 he was
graduated as a civil engineer from St. Vincent's College, for eight years
subsequently being connected with the Pacific Electric Company. En-
dowed with robust health and cheery, optimistic temperament, he was
a favorite at college, where he was a leader in athletics, as he was also'
in scholarship. He was particularly eloquent in debate and easily won
the .Stephen M. White medal presented by William White, son of Stephen
M. White, of the second generation of native sons. In 1918 Mr.
Reynolds was appointed deputy internal revenue officer, and was attend-
ing to his official duties when stricken with influenza, which developed
into pneumonia. He died after an illness of but eight days.
Mr. Reynolds was married July 8, 1915, to Miss Hazel Connors, who
came to this city in 1911 from South Dakota, and is a daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. John Connors, who reside on Roosevelt street, Los Angeles.
Mrs. Reynolds survives with their little daughter. Romayne Antoinette
Reynolds, also the mother and grandmother, Mrs. Hannah Greene.
Mr. Revnolds was always interested in football and was an active
cy%i^<f <^D-
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 7i
member uf the Southern California Football Association. He was often
called on to umpire school and college games and umpired a game three
weeks before taken ill. He was a democrat in politics, and more or less
active as an intelligent, wide awake citizen of a country in which he
took unmeasured pride. He belonged to the Young Men's Institute, and
was a member of the Ramona Parlor of the organization of Native Sons.
He had been reared in the Catholic faith and his religion was a part
of his life.
Wii.i. E. Keller. The most important men in the world todaj' are
those who stand in some vital position with respect to the production and
distribution of indispensable material, especially foodstuffs. There is
probably no man in California who directs and influences a larger volume
of business in the grain and milling industries than Will E. Keller, whose
career has been well described as one of the most notable among the
successful men of Los Angeles.
Mr. Keller was born at Woodville, Mississippi, January 30, 1868,
son of Charles E. and Agnes M. (Phares) Keller. He was only
twenty-four years of age when he came to Los Angeles, in 1892, and
from the first has been identified with the wholesale grain business.
It is possible to note only a few of his major operations in that field.
About twenty-one years ago he organized the McDonald-Graham Mill-
mg Company, at 913 East Third street, the capital of which was
$200,000. The company erected a mill with a daily capacity of two
hundred fifty barrels, and employed thirty men. In 1902 the name was
changed to the Globe Grain and Milling Company, and the capital in-
creased to $1,000,000, and Mr. Keller has been president of this cor-
poration ever since. At the same time the plant was enlarged to a
five hundred barrel mill. In 1902 they also erected a mill of three
hundred barrels capacity at Colton ; in 1903 an eight hundred barrel
mill at San Francisco ; in 1904 a two hundred fifty barrel mill at Wood-
land. When the San Francisco mill was destroyed by fire in 1906, it
was at once replaced by a mill with a daily capacity of sixteen hundred
barrels. A three hundred and fifty barrel mill was erected by these
interests in 1909 at El Paso, Texas, which marks the extreme eastern
limit of Mr. Keller's operations in the milling business. In 1910 the
Globe people built a three hundred barrel mill at San Diego, and in
1912 the Los Angeles plant was torn down and a larger mill of a
thousand barrels daily capacity erected in its place. In 1916 the mill
at Woodland was converted into a rice milling plant, with a daily
capacity of twenty-four hundred bags.
Mr. Keller has the honor of having constructed the first fireproof
flour mills in the west. From California his interests extended into
the Pacific northwest. In 1911 his company erected a grain elevator
at Portland, Oregon, it being a large and model plant, with a four
hundred thousand bushel concrete bulk storage and a ten thousand ton
grain warehouse, with docks and otheir facilities for loading both ships
and railroad cars. They also have a grain elevator just completed at
Ogden, Utah, constructed of concrete, with a capacity of seven hun-
dred thousand bushels, and so arranged that 10,000 bushels of grain
can be unloaded from cars per hour, and a like amount loaded out into
cars for shipment at the same time, making a total of 20,000 bushels
of grain that can be handled per hour. At San Pedro, on the water
front, is a four thousand ton steel elevator erected by this company in
1912. Besides handling grain, the various plants manufacture enor-
mous quantities of flour and feed stuffs, they also having a number
74 LOS ANGELES
of feed mills and warehouses in the Imperial Valley and in numerous
other parts of the country, extending as far north as Seattle, Wash-
ington. In the last fiscal year the volume of business of the Globe
Grain and Milling Company reached a total of over thirty-six million
dollars, and their capital and undivided profits amount to over ten
million dollars at the present time.
In 1916 Mr. Keller and associates formed the Globe Oil Mills and
erected an oil mill at Vernon, California. This mill manufactures great
quantities of cotton seed oil, cake, meal and linters, having a capacity
of a hundred twenty tons of cotton seed daily. In January, 1917, ihey
bought the cotton seed oil mill at Calexico, giving an added capacity of
sixty tons a day. In June, 1918, this company took over all the plants
of the Imperial Oil and Cotton Company, comprising a forty-ton mill
at Calexico, and a seventy-five-ton mill at El Centro, making a total
capacity of 295 tons per day of cotton seed crushed. They now have
thirty cotton gins in the Imperial Valley, six of them being located on
the Mexican side at Mexicola, and the others on the American side of
the boundary. They also have two gins in the Palo Verde Valley, and
six in the Yuma Valley, also one at Durham, in the Sacramento Valley,
and one at Colorado Siding, on the Indian Reservation, just across the
river from Yuma, making a total of thirty-eight gins. At Hobart, Cali-
fornia, the company operates stock yards, where during the season
1918-1919 they fattened over five thousand head of cattle on cotton
seed meal and hulls. The cattle yards are all paved with concrete,
there being about thirteen acres of pavement, and a portion of each
pen is* covered with corrugated iron sheds, thus the feeding troughs
being kept dry in rainy weather. Five thousand head of stock can be
fed at one time. This feeding yard has been acknowledged to be the
finest and most complete in America.
It is in the very nature of a successful business and the same is
true of a successful business man to grow and expand and attract and
accumulate outside interests. Thus Mr. Keller for a number of years
has also been identified with ice manufacturing, and is today president
of the Valley Ice Company, whose three plants in California, at Bakers-
field, Fresno and Modesto, have a combined capacity of fifteen hundred
tons per day, the most of which is used to ice the fruit cars of the
Southern Pacific and Santa Fe Railroads. These are by far the largest
ice plants in the west. Mr. Keller is also president of the Globe Ice
and Cold Storage Company of El Paso, Texas. The enterprises named
above furnish employment to over a thousand people.
Besides being president and in active control of the great chain of
industries above described, Mr. Keller is a director in the Merchants
National Bank of Los Angeles, the Ralston Iron Works of San Fran-
cisco, the Southwestern Portland Cement Company, having large plants
at El Paso, Texas, and Victorville, California, and the International
Packing Corporation, operating large fish canneries at San Diego and
San Pedro, California, and his interests as a business man have long
since taken him out of the class of a local leader and brought him into
touch with the big men of the entire nation. During the past year he
and associates formed the Federal Ice Refrigerating Company and
have erected and now have in operation in Chicago an artificial ice plant
that is probably the largest in the world. However, he claims and has
long been proud of Los Angeles as his home city, his residence being
at the southwest corner of Sixth street and Shatto Place. He is a
member of the California, Los Angeles Countr>', Los Angeles Athletic
and Westminster Gun Clubs of Los Angeles.
FRO^I THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 75
Charles Forman. Of the careers that could properly be made a
vehicle for telling the history of the real old West, one of the last to
terminate was that of General Charles Forman, who first came to Cali-
fornia in 1853, and who for over thirty years was a resident and prom-
inent figure in business affairs in Los Angeles. He di^d January 9, 1919,
at the age of eighty-four, and his d;ath served to recall many interesting
memories of events and conditions with which the modern generation is
familiar only through the printed page. General Forman's personality
and achievements were frequently made the subject of interesting stories
published in the press, and of numerous biographies written of him
one that contained a great deal of history was one prepared by Charles
F. Lummis and Charles Amadon ]\Ioody and published in "Out West"
in April, 1909.
General Forman was born near Owego, Tioga county, New York,
January 14, 1835, son of Sands and Mary (Matthews) Forman. His
grandfather, Miles Forman, was an officer in the War of 1812. His
uncle, Colonel Ferris Forman, was a participant in both the Mexican
and Civil wars. Mr. Forman had three brothers: Stephen, a farmer:
Sands, a machinist and inventor, and Edward, who for many years was
secretary and manager of Spaulding & Company, the old reliable jewelry
house in Chicago. These brothers are all dead. There were two sis-
ters: Mary Elizabeth, who married Edwin S. Woodbridge, of Bing-
hampton. New York, and died in 1912, at the age of eighty-six, and
Miss Ellen A., who is still living at Binghampton, New York, aged
seventy-nine years.
General Forman received his education in the public schools, gradu-
ating from the Owego Academy in 1854, and the following year, at the
age of eighteen, began to satisfy his lifelong thirst for adventure and
the romance of the west. He came to California by the Isthmus route
and for a time worked in the postoffice at Sacramento, where his uncle,
Colonel Ferris Forman, the postmaster, had located four years previ-
ously. On business connected with the postofifice department he made
the overland trip to Washington with a small party. He visited relatives
in the state of New York, and then returned to Sacramento by way of
the old Santa Fe trail. For two years he was deputy secretary of state.
Mr. Forman was a pioneer of Nevada, going to that territory in
1860. For a time he was in the employ of Wells Fargo & Company at
Gold Hill and Virginia City, and later engaged in mining on the Corn-
stock, being connected with the Eclipse Mill and Mining Company. One
of his most successful mining adventures was in Pioche, Nevada, where
he was superintendent of the Meadow Valley Mining Company during
the strenuous days of the early seventies. While he was in Virginia
City the town had a population of about two thousand. Shortly after
his arrival he became a member of the volunteer military company or-
ganized to protect the communitv against Indian attacks. He took part
in many skirmishes and was in one fixed battle where ninety-seven
white men fought five hundred Indians and only twenty-one of the
whites survived. General Forman went through the five hour battle
without a scratch. The title of general by which he was generally
known came as a result of his appointment in 1881 by Governor John
H. Kinkead as major general of the Nevada Volunteers.
In 1872 General Forman engaged in the lumber business at Salt
Lake City with T. R. Jones. Much of the lumber for the "Amelia
Palace" was sold to Brigham Young by this firm. In 1874 he returned
to Virginia City, and with the exception of one or two years spent in
Chihuahua, Mexico, remained in Nevada engaged in mining until 1887.
76 LOS ANGELES
111 the meantime the glories of Virginia City as a mining center
had begun to wane, and in 1887 General Forman permanently esiab-
lished his home in Los Angeles. He became interested in the street
railway business, and was vice president and general manager of the
old Los Angeles Cable Company, which later was sold to a group of
Chicago capitalists. Owing to ill health he was obliged to retire from
active business for a few years. In the early nineties he established the
Kern River Company, a power company promoted for the purpose of
bringing electricity from Kern River to Los Angeles. It was one of
the pioneer eliforts in America to solve the problem of long distance
transmission of electric current, and the fact that General Forman was
one of the active promoters of the company when in advanced years
shows his vigor of mind and progressiveness, which were inseparable
characteristics of his entire life. The Kern River Company eventually
was merged with the Pacific Light and Power Company of Los Angeles.
General Forman was president of the Kern River Company and secre-
tary of the Pacific Light & Power Company until July, 1912, when he
resigned. In the closing years of his life he devoted most of his time
to the development of his ranch near Lankershim.
General Forman was a typical representative of the best of that flood
of virile manhood which poured into California in the fifties and spread
over the entire far west. He possessed courage, enterprise and initia-
tive, good judgment and energy, and with all these traits he was quiet
and unassuming and was unspoiled by good fortune. Through all his
years he retained the esteem and confidence of his fellow citizens.
Again and again he demonstrated his faith in Los Angeles, and made
extensive investments there when no one could reahze the brilliant fu-
ture that has since unfolded. General Forman was a charter member of
the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, for years was a member of
its Board of Directors and its president in 1899, and the Chamber was
represented at his funeral by a special committee. He was also a char-
ter member of the California Club and at the time of his death was a
member of the Engineers and Architects Association, the Jonathan Clbb
and the Gamut Club. He was eminent commander of DeWitt Clinton
Commandery of the Knights Templar in Virginia Citv in 1879. 1880
and 1881.
On October 15, 1862, General Forman was married at the old
Rancho de la Puente, in Los Angeles county, to Miss Mary Agnes
Gray, a step-daughter of John Rowland, one of the original owners of
the Rancho. Mary Agnes Gray was born in Covington, Kentucky,
September 19, 1843, and came to California across the plains with her
mother, Mrs. Charlotte M. Gray, and two small brothers in 1851. Her
father, John Gray, was killed by the Indians on the way. Mrs. Gray
later married John Rowland, who received the grant of the Rancho de
la Puente in 1841. Mary Gray was educated at Notre Dame Convent
in San Jose and at Miss Atkins School in Benicia. After her marriage
she went to live in Nevada with General Forman, but in 1882 the fam-
ily moved from Virginia City to Los Angeles. A few years ago an
interesting story was printed concerning the dismantling of a picturesque
home in Los Angeles, known as the General Forman home. This house
had originally been erected in Virginia Cit}', Nevada, by General For-
man at a cost of twelve thousand dollars. His family had lived in it
for seven years, from the time it was erected in 1875. When the family
removed to Los Angeles General Forman was loathe to allow his resi-
dence, endeared to him by many associations, to become a prey to the
MRS. CHARLOTTE M. ROWLAND
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 77
process of decay then at work in Virginia City, and after some nego-
tiation he had the house taken to pieces, shipped by the Southern Pacific
l-iailway in ten carloads and set upon a new site in Los Angeles on a
twenty acre tract near Pico and Figueroa street. That land was
hought at an original cost of a hundred and fifty dollars an acre, but
can be identified with some of the highest priced frontage in the Eos
Angeles of today. It is said that it cost General Forman six thousand
dollars to transport and rebuild his residence, and he felt well satis-
tied with the deal. For many years it was one of the show places of
the city, but gradually business interests encroached and early in 1913
the residence was wrecked to make room for some tracks of the Los
Angeles Railway system. For years this home on West Pico street
stood in the midst of an orange grove, and was the scene of many
pleasant social gatherings. Mrs. Forman had a wide circle of friends
and her chief delight was entertaining them. One of the social events
of the city was the New' Year Watch held in the Forman residence.
In 1901 the family moved to South Flower street. Mrs. Forman, who
represented the fine spirit of old time hospitality in Los Angeles, and
was also a benefactor to many of the unfortunate, died November 3,
1918, at the age of seventy-five. General and Mrs. Forman are sur-
vived by two children, Miss Eloise Forman and Charles Forman, Jr.
Mr.s. Charlotte ]\1. Rowland was born on February 5, 1826, at
.Marietta, Ohio. She was the daughter of Isaiah Gavitt and Elizabeth
Murphy, his wife.
Elizabeth Murphy's grandmother, Mary Perry, was an own cousin
of Commodore Perry, the hero of Lake Erie. Her father, Martin Mur-
phy, of Newport, Rhode Island, enlisted and served six years in the
Revolutionary army.
Charlotte married John B. Gray, of Covington, Kentucky, a son of
John and Deborah Gray. They had three children, Mary Agnes. James
Andrew and John. In 1850 Mr. Gray left Covington with his familx
and came as far west as El Paso. Te.xas. The following year they startetl
from El Paso for California. There were eighty persons in the party,
including eight children and they had eight covered wagons, horses and
mules, some oxen and three cows which were milked on the way. Mr.
Gray was killed by the Indians in the Guadeloupe Mountains, between
El Paso and Santa Cruz. The party was eight months on the road and
arrived at San Bernardino in the summer of 1851. In this party were
Dr. Obed Macy, his wife and several children; Ira Thompson, with his
wife, Rebecca, and their children, and David Lewis, a pioneer of El
Monte, who married Susan Thom|)son. So far as known, Mrs. Susan
Thompson Parrish, still li\ing at El Monte, at an advanced age, Mrs.
Lucinda Macy Fu\- of San Rafael Heights, Pasadena; her brothers,
William and Obed, an<l a lister. Mrs. Evans of ( )ak1and. who was an
infant at the time.
Mrs. Gray bouglit a small home near the present town of El ]Monte,
where she lived with her three small children until her marriage to John
Rowland, on September 16, 1852. l\lr. Rowdand was a native of Mary--
land, who came to California from Taos, New Mexico, with his wife.
Encarnacion Martinez de Rowland, and located upon the Rancho de la
Puente. twenty miles east of Los Angeles, with William Workman. Mr.
Rowland located on the Rancho in 1841, and received a Mexican grant
to the land from Governor Pio Pico July 22, 1845. Mr>. Encarnacion
de Rowland died about 1850, leaving a large family. The only one living
78 LOS ANGELES
now is a son, William R. Rowland of Los Angeles. To Mr. John Row-
land and his second wife were born three children, Albert, Lillian and
Victoria. All are now dead.
Of the Gray children, Mary Agnes married Charles Forman of
Gold Hill, Nevada, in 1862. She died on November 3, 1918. Mr. For-
man died on January 9, 1919. Of their children, James Andrew died
on May 12, 1875, and John died in early childhood. Albert Rowland
married Abbie Lewis in 1879, and he died March 8, 1891. Lillian Row-
land died in infancy. Victoria Rowland married Josiah Whitcomb Hud-
son in 1879. Mr. Hudson died in 1914, and Mrs. Hudson August 9, 1916.
It is impossible to do justice to the admirable character of Mrs.
Charlotte M. Rowland. This noble and beloved woman was one of the
first American women to reach this section, a real pioneer. The sweet-
ness of her disposition, and her native refinement won for her the esteem
of the entire community, Spanish at the time. In those days, when all
transportation was on horseback or by wagon, life was much simpler.
The hurry and bustle of the present day was unknown. Every one found
leisure to cultivate acquaintance. The hospitality of the Rowlands be-
came a household word. Mrs. Rowland was soon known throughout the
country for her gentleness and kindliness of character. The poor and
unfortunate found in her an unfailing friend. She encouraged them
when despondent, consoled them in sorrow, and rejoiced with them in
their success and happiness. She it was who sat oftenest by the cradle
of the new born, and who softly closed the eyes of many who had fallen
into the last long sleep. But it was to her own family and household that
she was most dear. An active, ever busy woman, with many and great
responsibilities as the years passed, she was never too busy to answer the
eager questions of childish lips ; she was never too tired, no matter how
heavy the cares of the day had been, to tell a story to her grandchildren.
She has left to them a golden memory. After an illness of three years,
Mrs. Rowland passed away on June 10, 1895, at the age of sixty-nine
years.
The surviving grandchildren are Miss Eloise Forman and Charles
Forman Jr. of Los Angeles, children of Mary Agnes Gray and Charles
Forman; Mrs. Josephine Rowland Cross, wife of George E. Cross, a
prominent business man of Puente, Frank Rowland of Puente, and
Charles William Rowland of Santa Maria, children of Albert Rowland
and Abbie Lewis, his wife ; Miss Lillian Hudson of Puente, William
Rowland Hudson of Puente, and J. Whitcomb Hudson of Puente, chil-
dren of Victoria Rowland and Josiah Whitcomb Hudson. To these
grandchildren, all men and women now, the memory of their grand-
mother, Charlotte M. Rowland, has been a constant benediction through
the years.
Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt. The professional career of
Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt has embraced a period of but five years,
all of which have been passed at Los Angeles, but during this time she
has, by assiduous attention to her professional duties and by profound
knowledge of her vocation and skill in its practice, won a place among
the reputrble practitioners of law, and at the same time has done much
to open the doors of professional preferment to deserving and properly
trained women.
Mrs. Willebrandt was born May 23, 1889, in Woodsdale, Kansas,
a daughter of David W. and Myrtle (Eaton) Walker. Her father, a
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 79
pioneer of western Kansas, was first a newspaper man, associated with
some of the early journalistic efforts of his day and locality, and later
went to Buckley, Michigan, where he was identified with banking en-
terprises. Both he and Mrs. Walker survive and are residents of Los
Angeles. Mrs. Willebrandt had normal training in the high school at
Kansas City, Missouri, following which she enrolled as a student at
Park College, Parksville, Missouri. Subsequently she pursued a course
at Ferris Institute, Big Rapids, Michigan, where Governor Ferris was
her instructor, and this period of study was followed by a short period
of teaching at Phoenix, Arizona. Later she took a post-graduate course
at Tempe, Arizona. On February 7, 1910, she was married to Arthur
Willebrandt, who is now in France, having been a member of the
famous Ninety-first Division, which covered itself with glory on the
battlefields of Flanders.
From 1912 to 1914 Mrs. Willebrandt served as principal of schools
at South Pasadena, California, but in the meantime had continued her
law studies, and in 1915 was admitted to the bar. During that year
she had the unique distinction of being the first woman city public de-
fender in any city in the United States. She studied law at the Uni-
versity of Southern California, where she received her bachelor's de-
gree in 1916, and her master's degree in 1917. In the meantime she
had engaged actively in the practice of her profession at Los Angeles,
and in the fall of 1916 opened her present offices at No. 257 South
Spring street. Her work has been largely of a probate character, and
her practice has been singularly free from cases taking her clients into
the divorce courts. From the start of her professional career her prac-
tice has been a successful one, showing a constant and steady growth
both in size and importance, and at this time she occupies a prominent
place in the ranks of the fraternity. She has real estate holdings of
considerable value and is accounted a clever and well-informed business
woman.
Mrs. Willebrandt's activities in club life have engaged a large
part of her attention and various honors have been bestowed upon her.
She is chairman of the committee on legislation of the Friday Morning
Club, secretary of the Professional Women's Club, secretary of the
Women Lawyers' Club and a member of the Women's City Club. She
is likewise past master of the Phi Delta Delta legal women's fraternity,
a stalwart republican in her political allegiance, she did considerable
campaigning for Miss Orfa Jean Shontz, the first woman to run for
judge of the Superior Court. During the period, of the war Mrs. Wille-
brandt subjugated her interests to those of the country and rendered
services of the most valuable character. As chairman and secretary of
the legal advisory board of District No. 11, the second largest board
in Los Angeles, she had charge of all the legal work in her district, and
superintended the work of fifty attorneys in handling questionnaires
and registration, and in the settling of all legal questions that arose in
connection with the presentation of claims for exemption and change
of classification. Personally she handled some 10,000 questionnaires. A
large part of her time was also devoted to the work of the Red Cross,
where her fine legal talents were used in adjusting differences and
settling controversies in regard to the work of relief.
It is but natural that Mrs. Willebrandt should be interested in
suffrage, a field of endeavor in which she has been very active. Her
comparatively short career has been largely devoted to constant effort
for the equal advancement of both men and women in all educational
80 LOS ANGELES
and progressive activities. To this work she has given freely of all
that she has gained through a constant study of fundamental principles
and their application to the everyday life of the people.
Major Henry Hancock, during a residence in southern California
of over thirty years, was a man distinguished by many experiences and
by participation official and civil in the early history of Los Angeles
and vicinity.
He was born in New Hampshire, February 22, 1822, and died in
his sixty-first year in January, 1883. He served in the Mexican war,
and in 1849 came to California, arriving here with few more possessions
than he carried about his person. He went to- mining, and in a short
time took out twenty thousand dollars worth of gold. Much of this
he invested in the Mexican grants, paying two and three dollars an
acre. Chief of these grants which came under his ownership was the
Rancho La Brea, west of Los Angeles. On a portion of lands formerly
owned by Major Hancock were built the suburbs of Hollywood, Sher-
man and Colegrove. Much of this original rancho is still intact, and
constitutes one of the largest and most valuable land holdings in south-
ern California.
Major Hancock located in Los Angeles in 1852. He was both an
attorney and a surveyor. He surveyed many private ranches in differ-
ent parts of California and for a number of years served as United
States sur\'eyor. He made the second official survey of the city of Las
Angeles. He represented Los Angeles county in the Legislature. Of
the talented and noble woman who became his wife, and who survived
him many years, a separate sketch has been prepared and published
in this volume.
When Major Hancock died a committee of the Los Angeles Bar
Association prepared a memorial indicating in official language some
of the facts already stated, and from which the following sentences
are taken : "God in His Wisdom has called to his final rest our brother,
the late Major Henry Hancock, long a member of this court and the
courts of this state. We, his brothers in the profession in which he, by
his integrity and ability, made himself a conspicuous ornament, and by
his services to his country in the Mexican war, and in the late war
between the states, gave evidence of his devotion and patriotism, there-
fore,
"Resolved, That in the death of the late Major Henry Hancock, the
bar of this city and the state loses a pure and upright man, able and
energetic in his profession, one who at a loss to himself was ever will-
ing to devote his time, energy and learning to redress the wrongs and
injuries of others: that in the death of Major Henry Hancock the com-
munity in which he lived, the State and Nation, have lost the services
of a pure and upright citizen, an able lawyer and a patriotic soldier."
Ida Hancock Ross. Among California women whose lives have
been significant through character, richness of purpose, and extent of
influence and charity, that of the late Ida Hancock Ross has an interest
that is still vital, though she was taken from the living more than five
years ago.
She was a real California pioneer, and she lived through and was
impressed by the romance, the hardships and all the glamor which sur-
rounded and invested the California of the past and the epic days of
the west.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 81
She was born at Imperial, Illinois, in 1843, and died at the age of
seventy at Los Angeles, March 15, 1913. Her father was Count Agos-
tin Haraszthy, whose life and history have special interest for the pres-
ent time. He was one of the figures who made glorious the early strug-
gle of Hungary against the despotic forces which manacled that coun-
try for generations. On account of his active efforts in behalf of free-
dom he was exiled from his native land in 1840. Coming to America,
he cast his fortunes in the land of liberty. His wife was Elenora de
Dediniskyi, a noblewoman of Polish ancestry. Their daughter Ida was
born soon after they came to America. They had six children before
they started for California. The oldest son remained in the east, at
the Annapolis Naval Academy. Count Haraszthy's father also accom-
panied the party to California.
They came to this state over the Santa Fe trail during the summer of
1849. The late Mrs. Ross was old enough to appreciate many of the
circumstances of that romantic and dangerous exodus. After many
weeks of traveling, suffering from hunger and thirst, and with good for-
tune escaping hostile Indians, the party arrived in San Diego, where
Count Haraszthy established his home. Here his character, superior
ability and broad intelligence brought him into local prominence. He
was chosen to offices, being elected first sheriff of the county, and also
marshal of the city, while his father became first justice of the peace
and president of the first City Council. In 1852 Count Haraszthy was
sent to the Legislature from San Diego. He was a member of the
Legislature at the same time with Major Henry Hancock, the future
husband of his daughter. Eventually Count Haraszthy removed to
Sonoma county and planted a vineyard, the original stock of which was
imported from Europe and formed the first vines ever grown in the state
for industrial purposes. In 1860 Governor Downey sent Count Haraszthy
to Europe to collect cuttings of the finest wine grapes to use in develop-
ing the California industry. He made this important and interesting trip
at his own expense. In 1867 Count Haraszthy went to Central America,
and died there the following year.
Ida Haraszthy was six years old when her parents came to Cali-
fornia. In 1851 she and some of her brothers and sisters and her
mother went back east and remained five years, completing her educa-
tion in select institutions of the eastern states. In- 1860 she and her
mother went to Paris, in which city she lived two years and became in-
timate with all the culture and social advantages of that great capital.
Then upon her return to California she entered upon her social duties,
and soon afterward became the bride of the gallant Major Hancock.
After his death in 1883 she was left alone with her two sons to
rear and educate, and with the property heavily encumbered. Then and
there she showed the nobility of her temper and the nobility of her an-
cestry. With great courage and devotion she took her boys to the little
old ranch house and for two years struggled and did much of the rough
labor of the ranch with her own hands. At the same time she kept
her boys in school near San Francisco. Her splendid business judgment
eventually lifted the mortgage from the land, and from that time for-
ward she lived in comfort, but, like the queen of classic mythology, hav-
ing experienced suffering she was always sympathetic with those who
suffered, and understood the privations of the human lot. It was this
charity, born partly of experience and partly from the generosity of her
character, that did so much to distinguish Madame Ross, as she was
known. Few have succeeded so well in the master principle of charity,
82 LOS ANGELES
covering up the deeds from the knowledge of those benefited. It is only-
possible to say that the results of this private charity were enormous in
the aggregate, but concerning its details the record can live only in the
hearts of the recipients. Of one public benefaction people knew only, a
semi-annual treat of ice cream, cake and candy to every orphan diat
could be found to partake in Los Angeles. One of these occasions
occurred on her birthday and the other either at Christmas or Easter.
By her first marriage with Major Hancock she had one son to
grow up, George Allan Hancock, mentioned in separate paragraphs.
In 1909 Mrs. Hancock became the wife of Hon. Erskine M. Ross, who
served as a useful officer on the Confederate side in the Civil war, and
came to Los Angeles fifty years ago and has long been one of the dis-
tinguished lawyers and jurists of California. Forty years ago he was
elected to the Supreme Court of the state, and has also served as a
judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of
California.
One of the most beautiful homes of Los Angeles is the place at Wil-
shire Boulevard and Vermont avenue, where Mrs. Ross lived until her
demise. It is architecturally a replica of the Villa Medici at Florence,
which was greatly admired by Mrs. Ross. The music room in this
Los Angeles mansion is a marvel of art, and in it was installed by Mrs.
Ross one of the largest pipe organs in the state. It was also enriched
with many rare art treasures, including pictures collected by Mrs. Ross
during her European travels. For a number of years she spent about
six months annually abroad, and her wealth enabled her to give full
scope to the tastes acquired in early life and long subsequent study of
the greatest masters of painting and other fine arts. She was richly
endowed with critical appreciation of all the best in music and art, and
also of those talents which find expression in practical beneficence and
charity. Such a life becomes a resource to a community, and it was
thus regarded when Mrs. Ross passed away. She had lived the greater
part of a half century in Los Angeles, had delighted in the growth of
that Spanish cormnunity, as she first knew it, into the unique city of the
western continent, and she took a corresponding pride in all that fur-
thered that growth. More than a thousand persons gathered at the
Cathedral for the solemn requiem mass by Bishop Conaty and Mon-
signor Harnett, their presence testifying to the popularity of Mrs. Ross
and all the beauty of her character.
George Allan Hancock, a son of Major Henry Hancock and Ida
Hancock Ross, both distinguished pioneers of the old Los Angeles, was
born at San Francisco, July 26, 1875. He attended the Brewers private
school at San Mateo and Belmont School at Belmont, California, to the
age of eighteen. After taking a business course at Los Angeles he
went on his father's famous Rancho La Brea adjoining Los Angeles, and
was immersed in the practical duties of this great property up to the
age of twenty-six. After that he was employed in the oil field on the
same ranch, and acquainted himself with every phase of the oil industry
during the next four years.
At that time Mr. Hancock organized the Rancho La Brea Oil Com-
pany, of which he is owner. He individually owns two thousand acres
of this famous rancho. Under his personal supervision seventy-one
oil wells have been sunk, and there is a total of a hundred and eighty
wells on the land. At the present time the daily production of gas
from this field amounts to two and a half million cubic feet, all of
FROM THE MOUNiTAINS TO THE SEA 83
which except a small portion used for operating purposes on the prop-
erty is supplied to domestic consumers in Los Angeles. The oil pro-
duction is only part of the vast resources Mr. Hancock superintends.
He has fifteen hundred acres in cultivation, a thousand acres in beans,
and five hundred acres in barley.
In the south room of the Museum of History, Science and Art
of Los Angeles, there is on exhibition a collection of animal skeletons
from the Rancho La Brea deposit. These animals belong to the period
immediately preceding recent times, the geological epoch known as the
"Pleistocene," in which occurred the last glacial advance and when the
earlier forms of life were disappearing, replaced by the more modern
types which now inhabit the earth. ()n June 23, 1918, Mr. George
Allan Hancock, the present owner of Rancho La Brea, granted to the
Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles the exclusive privilege of excavat-
ing for a period of years. This work is being done under the auspices
ot the Museum of History, Science and Art, the specimens to remain
in the possession of the institution. The specimens thus acquired are
to be segregated and exhibited at the Museum as the Hancock Collec-
tion — a memorial erected by Mr. George Allan Hancock in memory
of his parents. Major Henry Hancock and Mrs. Ida Hancock Ross,
The institution is to have eventually a room devoted solely to this ex-
hibit, to be known as the Hancock Room.
Mr. Hancock is vice-president of the Hibernian Savings Bank of
Los Angeles, is a member of the California Club, the Los Angeles Ath-
letic Club, the Gamut Club, the Uplifters, the Knights of Columbus, the
Bohemian Club of San Francisco and of a number of yacht clubs. He
is a republican voter and a member of the Catholic church. Mr. Han-
cock has his own extensive hobby, which gives him real pleasure —
his yacht, on which he spends his Saturdays and Sundays, usually en-
tertaining a number of guests. This yacht was designed and planned
by its owner, and is unusual in the fact that boatmen and builders pre-
dicted that it would prove a failure. Severe tests have demonstrated it
the safest and soundest of craft. Mr. Hancock is his own captain and
always takes full charge of the handling of his boat and its navigation.
Mr. Hancock has many of the artistic traits of his honored mother
"and is especially well known in musical circles in southern California.
His favorite musical instrument is the cello, and it is hardly fair to call
him an amateur, though he is an amateur in spirit and ranks with the
leading professionals in skill and technique on that instrument. He has
one of the finest instruments in existence, one made in 1772 by Nicolus
Gagliano. His mother spent much time and took a great deal of care
in selecting this instrument while she was abroad. Mr. Hancock has
played with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra for six years, and
his personal time and resources do much to keep up that splendid organ-
ization. He served as its treasurer from 1914 to 1916, and its president
for the years 1917-18^19. Mr. Hancock, through his untiring efforts,
has been successful in bringing the Los Angeles Symphony over a most
trying era in its history. Last year it emerged from a very successful
season, leaving the orchestra to commence its future work clear of all
past debts.
In Los Angeles, November 12, 1901, Mr. Hancock married Gene-
vieve Mullen. They have two children: Bertram Deane, born in 1902,
who attended Notre Dame University, at Notre Dame, Indiana, one
year, and is now a student in Santa Clara College, Santa Clara, Cali-
fornia. Rosemary, the second child, is a student in the Ramona Con-
vent, at Alhambra, California.
84 LOS ANGELES
Spencer Langdon Blodget, of Huntington Beach, has been a resi-
dent of Calilornia since Ibso and is well known in banking and business
circles. He and his wife, Carra Myrtle Belnap Blodget, represent some
of the oldest American New England families. Of Puritan English
stock, their ancestors fought in every American war. The first Ameri-
can ancestor of Mr. Blodget was Thomas, who spelled his name Blogget.
He came from Norfolk, England, in 1635. Mrs. Blodget's first an-
cestor was Abraham Belnap, who came from County Kent in the same
year. Twelve of the Blodget and Belnap families were soldiers in the
Revolutionary war.
Spencer Langdon Blodget was born at Sugar Grove, Pennsylvania,
May 7, 1859. He is a son of William Oren Blodget, born at Gorham,
New York, in 1824, a school teacher and merchant at Sugar Grove,
Pennsylvania, who served as first lieutenant in the 151st Pennsylvania
Infantry at the battle of Gettysburg ; a grandson of Arba Blodget, a
soldier of the War of 1812 ; and great-grandson of Solomon Blodget, a
direct Revolutionary ancestor of Brimfield, Massachusetts. Other an-
cestral lines represented in William Oren Blodget were Thomas Maule,
known in history as the first defender of Free Press, who lived at
Salem, Massachusetts : Isaac Sternes, Gregory Stone, Walter Haynes,
Sergeant John Tidd and other Puritan pioneers.
The mother of Spencer L. Blodget was Esther Ann Spencer, who
was descended from Squire Benjamin Spencer, whose controversy with
Ethan Allen of V'emiont resulted in riots and the outlawry of Allen.
Benjamin Spencer and his five sons were United Empire Loyalists and
moved to Canada, where the family lived for generations.
Spencer Langdon Blodget finished his education as a student in the
Annapolis Naval Academy, but resigned to engage in business. He
was a merchant in Pennsylvania, and on coming to California i)i 1885
settled at Bakersfield. For a number of years his home has been at
Huntington Beach, and he was cashier of the First National Bank of
that town from 1906 to 1913 and is still a director. He served as
colonel of the California Sons of Veterans in 1888, and for ten years
ending in 1898 was lieutenant in the California National Guards, Com-
pany G of the Sixth Regiment at Bakersfield. Mr. Blodget is a repub-
lican, a Knights Templar Mason and Shriner and past master of Bak-
ersfield Lodge and Huntington Beach Lodge and past commander of
Bakersfield Commandery of the Knights Templar.
He and Carra I\Iyrtle Belnap were married December 17, 1878.
She was descended from Jesse Belnap, a Revolutionary soldier who
forged the chain to obstruct the passage of the Hudson at West Point.
Her father, A. M. Belnap, came to California in the gold rush of the
fifties, crossing Nicaragua in Central America. Later he returned to
Youngsvilie, Pennsylvania, and was postmaster there for twenty-one
years. He returned to California in 1886, and died at Bakersfield in
1910, at the age of eighty-five. His wife was Ellen Fletcher, descended
from Robert Fletcher, and from Ezekiel Cheever, the "Boston School-
master." Carra Myrtle Belnap was born at Youngsvilie, Pennsylvania,
February 12, 1860, and died in 1893. S. L. Blodget married in 1895
Florence Langdon,
Mr. Blodget by his first wife had five sons and one daugb.ter, all
now grown. The oldest, Claude R. Blodget, is in business at Bakers-
field. The second, Percy L. Blodget, is a mining engineer. The third,
Rush M. Blbdgett, is an attorney. The fourth. Ward B. Blodget, is
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 85
chief geologist of the Sante Fe oil properties. The youngest, Lewis
W. Blodget, is city attorney of Huntington Ueach. The one daughter,
Marian B., is the wife of C. C. Ramsey, of Bakersfield, California. All
the sons are Leland Stanford men except Lewis. Four of them have
military records. Claude served as a sergeant in Company G, Sixth
Regiment, California Volunteers, in the Spanish-American war. The
other three had their military experience during the World war. Percy
was captain of the United States Engineers; Ward, a private in the
23rd Regiment of Engineers, and Lewis, a first lieutenant in Headquar-
ters Company, 13th Regiment Infantry.
Rush M. Blodget, senior member of Blodget & Blodget, lawyers
at Los Angeles and Huntington Beach, has lived in California for over
thirty-five years and since his admission to the bar in 1907 has made
an enviable record as an attorney and counselor.
Mr. Blodget was born at Youngsville, Pennsylvania, December 3,
1881, a son of Spencer Langdon and Carra Myrtle (Belnap) Blodget.
He came out to California with his parents in 1884. His mother died
in 1893 and his father is a resident of Huntington Beach and an expert
accountant by profession. Rush Al. Blodget acquired his early educa-
tion in the public schools of Bakersfield, graduated from the Kern
County High School with the class of 1899, and took his law work
in Leland Stanford University, graduating LL. B. in 1907. He was
admitted to the California bar in July of that year, and in 1908 became
a member of the law firm of Watkins & Blodget at Los Angeles. In
1912 he took up an individual practice, and has since been associated
with his brother under the name of Blodget & Blodget, handling all the
business of that firm at Los Angeles.
Mr. Blodget was city attorney of Huntington Beach from 1909 to
1911, served in a sinular capacity at Stanton in 1911-12, and since his
appointment in 1918 has been city attorney of Venice, where he resides.
He is independent in politics. Mr. Blodget served seven years as a
member of the National Guard, is a member of the Delta Chi fraternity,
Huntington Lodge No. 380, A. F. and A. M., is a member of Los An-
geles Chapter of the California Society of the Sons of the American
Revolution, and the Los Angeles County Bar Association.
May 29, 1911, at Los Angeles, he married Miss Beryl Lorena French,
a native daughter of California and a graduate of the Los Angeles Nor-
mal School in 1907. Her parents were James Edward and Mary
(Prosser) French. Both the Prossers and Frenches were among the
early day California pioneers. Her father, who died in 1896, was for
many years a fruit grower at Loomis, California, where Mrs. Blodget
was born. Mary Prosser French is still living at the old homestead in
Loomis. Her father, Robert Prosser, was a Virginian, hating the insti-
tution of slavery-, and left the south and went to St. Louis, Missouri,
where he was a carriage manufacturer, and in the early fifties crossed
the plains to California. Mr. and Mrs. Blodget have one son. Rush M.
P>lodget II, born at Los Angeles November 3, 1918.
Lewis William Blodget is a member of the law firm of Blodget &
lilodget, of Huntington Beach and Los Angeles, and handles the prac-
tice of the firm at Huntington Beach. Mr. Blodget is well versed in
the law and is a young man whose past record gives signal promise of
brilliant performance in coming years.
86 LOS ANGELES
He was born at Bakersfield, California, November 27 , 1893, a son
of Spencer Langdon and Carra (Belnap) Blodget. His father, a resi-
dent of Huntington Beach, is an expert accountant in the motor vehicle
department of Los Angeles* Lewis William was the youngest of a
family of five sons and one daughter, and his mother died at Bakersfield
soon after his birth. He was educated in the grammar schools of Bak-
ersfield, the high school at Huntington Beach, graduated in 1911, and
received his degree Bachelor of Laws from the University of Southern
California in 1915. After a few weeks of practice alone he formed a
partnership with his brother. Rush Af. Blodget, as Blodget & Blodget,
with offices in Los Angeles and Huntington Beach. Lewis looks after
all the business at Huntington Beach, while his brother takes charge
of the practice at Los Angeles, and they, as a matter of fact, carry on
an individual practice, being associated when their interests require it.
Mr. Blodget was in the United States Army a year and a half,
serving with the rank of first lieutenant and being stationed at Camp
Fremont, Camp Mills, Long Island, Camp Merrit, New Jersey, and also
at Washington. He was one of many officers denied the privilege of
getting into overseas duty, his legal experience calling him to special
work in Washington. He was commissioned a first lieutenant of the
Regular Army, and much of his time was spent in drilling and instruct-
ing troops. The day that the armistice was signed he was on board
Transport No. 42 preparatory to going overseas, but left that transport
at Hoboken, New Jersey, the next morning.
While he was in the army he was appointed city attorney of Hunt-
ington Beach, and by means of telegrams from leading citizens of that
community he was discharged from the army and reached home the lat-
ter part of January, 1919. Mr. Blodget is a republican and has been
prominent in politics and civic affairs at Huntington Beach for a num-
ber of years. He is senior deacon of Huntington Lodge No. 380, A. Y .
and A. M., a member of the Delta Chi college fraternity, the Orange
County Bar Association, the Los Angeles Bar Association, and is a
member of the California Society of the Sons of the Revolution. Mr.
Blodget was married September 2, 1919, at Huntington P)each, Cali-
fornia, to Miss May Ball, of Morristown, New Jersey.
Frank E. Dunlap began the practice of law at Stockton, California,
thirty years ago, and since 1907 has been a resident of Los Angeles.
Here with offices in the Union Oil Building he has built ixp one of the
largest individual organizations in the legal circles of southern Cali-
fornia. He has an extensive corporation and land title practice, and
has his business thoroughly systematized with six competent lawyers
under him, each assigned to a different branch of the work. Mr. Dun-
lap is a Californian of long residence and many varied interests and
associations with the state. For a number of years he has been ex-
tensively interested in oil development.
He was born November 6, 1859, on a farm near Trenton in Grund\-
county, Missouri, (ieneral E. H. Crowder, who so ably administered
the draft organization during the recent war, was born in jMissouri in
the same year, and General John Pershing was born the year following.
Mr. Dunlap knew both of them as boys in Missouri while they were
nursing their first ambitions for a military career. All three are good
friends today, and General Pershing has promised Mr. Dunlap a visit
when he gets back to the United States. Mr. Dunlap is a son .-,f Wil-
liam and Elizabeth (Foutz) Dunlap. His people were well to do Mis-
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 87
-ouri farmers, moving there from Ohio. They were active members
of the Baptist church, and his father served as a deacon and largely
through his influence a church of that denomination was built on the
Dunlap farm. William Dunlap and wife had eleven children, si.x sons
and five daughters, all of whom grew to maturity. Three sons and two
daughters are living today and all of them residents of California.
Frank E. Dunlap attended the public schools of Missouri and fin-
ished his literary education in the Grand River College, a Baptist institu-
tion at Edinburg, in Grundy county. He graduated A. B. with the class
of 1880. Up to that time' he had lived as a Missouri farm boy, and
had received his first instruction in country schools. In 1881 he came
to California, locating at Stockton, where he taught and studied law
alternately. His law studies were carried on under the direction and
in the offices of the la'te Governor James H. Budd and his father,
Joseph H. Butld, at Stockton. He was admitted to the bar from their
office in June, 1888. Mr. Dunlap practiced law at Stockton until May,
1907, when he moved to Los Angeles. While at Stockton he was in
partnership with Judge Paul W. Bennett under the name of Bennett &
Dunlap, and also with Judge J. A. Plummer, now on the Superior Court
Bench, under the firm name of Dunlap & Plummer. He has had no
partnership relation in Los Angeles, though, as abov^ noted, his busi-
ness is an extensive one requiring the services of many other lawyers
working under him
While at Stockton Mr. Dunlap became prominent in politics as n
republican. He served one term as city attorney, as assistant district
attorney one term, and was a member of the State Legislature from
1899 to 1905. For seven years he was identified with the National
Guard of California, being adjutant of the Sixth Regiment five years
He was formerly master of Morning Star Lodge No. 68, V. and .\. M.,
at Stockton, and is now affiliated with Highland Park Lodge No. 382
and still retains his affiliation with the Royal Arch Chapter at Stockton.
He is also a member of Stockton Lodge No. 11, Independent Order of
( )dd Fellows, and of Charter Oak Lodge No. 20, Knights of Pythias, at
Stockton. Mr. Dunlap is a member of the Sons of Veterans at Stock-
ton. His father was a lieutenant in the L^nion Army during the Civil
war, serving all through that struggle with the Twenty-first Infantry
Regiment of Missouri. He had a horse shot under him in one engage-
ment. Mr. Dunlap is a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce.
December 11, 1889, he married Miss Althea E. Hickman, a native
daughter of California, born and educated at Stockton. Her parents
were Edward and Hepsabeth B. (Fisher) Hickman, both now deceased.
Her father for many years was a Stockton dry goods merchant.' Mr.
and Mrs. Dunlap had two sons, both born at Stockton. Willard E. was
educated in Los Angeles, graduating from Occidental College of this
city, and from Leland Stanford University, and is a geologist for the
General Petroleum Oil Company of San Francisco in the Los Angeles
offices. He married Miss Marian Bristol, of Los Angeles. The other
son, Percival H., was educated in Occidental College, from which he
graduated, and attended Leland Stanford one year. He was in charge
of the Paul N. Boggs Oil Well Supply Company at Coalinga, Cali-
fornia, and while there was stricken with the influenza and died De-
cember 15, 1918. He was laid to rest in the Mausoleum at Hollvwood.
88 LOS ANGELES
Patrick J. McGarry, a son of the late Daniel M. McGarry, whose
career as. a prominent Los Angeles resident has been reviewed on other
pages, is a pharmacist by profession and early education, but since his
father's death has been active in real estate and insurance circles and
is a member of the AlcGarry Realty Company.
Like his other brothers he was born in Chicago, July 27, 1879, and
was an infant when brought by his parents to Los Angeles. He re-
ceived his primary education in the Cathedral School and then entered
St. Vincent's College, from which he was graduated A. B. in the sum-
mer of 1896 and in 1898 received his Master of Arts degree from the
same institution. Later he entered the University of California and was
graduated from the pharmacy department in 1900. He practiced phar-
macy for several years, but in 1903, upon the death of his father, suc-
ceeded to the latter's realty interests, and has since continued the realty
and fire insurance business. Later his brother, D. F. McGarry, became
associated with him under the title McGarry Realty Company.
Mr. McGarry is also a man of many civic and social interests and
activities. He served as a member of the Municipal Charities Commis-
sion from June 10, 1913, to December 1, 1915, and was commissioner
in charge of the Municipal Employment Bureau from its incepiion in
the fall of 1913 until it merged with the State Employment Bureau. For
several years he has been a director and secretary of The Tidings, the
official organ of the Catholic church in this diocese. In politics, though
registered as a republican, Mr. McGarry has the liberal views that char-
acterized his father and the McGarry family in general. He is a char-
ter member of Los Angeles Council of the Knights of Columbus, served
as its grand knight two terms, 1913-14, and is now master of the Fourth
Degree Knights of Columbus in Southern California. He is a member
of the Newman Club of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Athletic Club,
and a member of the Alumni Council Newman Club of the University
of California. He is president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in
Southern California and is a former president of the Federation of
Catholic Societies of Los Angeles County.
At Los Angeles November 22, 1913, he married Miss Cecile Hoff-
mann, daughter of Emile and Alice (Mullen) Hoffmann. Her mother
was a daughter of the late Andrew Mullen of Los Angeles. Emile Hoff-
mann's father came from Lorraine and was a pioneer in San Francisco,
arriving there by way of the Isthmus of Panama in the early sixties.
Mr. and Mrs. McGarry have three young children, Emile Daniel, Alice
Patricia and Patrick James McGarry, Jr.
Timothy Spellacy is the author of this well-written autobiography.
I was born in the beautiful little village of Conneautville, Craw-
ford County, Pennsylvania. Was born of rich but honest parents ; rich
as counted in those days; the evidence of which was the fact that my
father cut his own ice.
I have no remembrance of the first year of my existence, and that
history comes entirely from tradition, which informed me thnt at my
birth my father was not well pleased, and (after taking one look) .his
face indicated disappointment. In the early years of life some of our
wealthy relatives insisted that we were descended from royal ancestry.
My father and mother were both born in Ireland and naturally claimed
descent from the last king, Brian Boru, and mads efforts to establish
the claim, but upon the ancestral tree there always appeared the mud
cabin which convinced that we were from common stock or from that
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 89
tioble class that Lincoln claimed the Lord loved, proven by creating so
many.
My education consisted in graduation from the Conneautville High
School, and I am frank to admit that I did not graduate from the top
of the class, and during life I found much trouble in conforming with
the great majority in spelling. I had a system of my own, when I
found that a specialist in orthography by the name of Webster had
induced people to follow his plan, and this interfered with my personal
liberty. 1 tried to adopt his, but even up to twenty-eight or thirty years
of age I still insisted on spelling sugar with an "h." I left home at
a rather early age and became interested in the production of oil. After
one year at the University of Edenburg, Clarion County, Pennsylvania,
I graduated as a full-fledged driller and most of my life followed that
occupation. I succeeded at times as an oil producer, but found it rather
a hard game, as the profits were not always sufficient to satisfy a
vicious appetite and the bankers — especially the latter. I found with
them flying was easy, but, like Dryas, the great trouble I encountered
was when I was compelled to alight. The only time and place with my
fellow countrj'men where I cut much ice was the winter of '98 and '99,
which I spent in Alaska. There being no market for ice, and failing
to find gold in sufficient quantities, I returned and anchored in Cali-
fornia, and I am pleased to say that in this glorious state I have been
shown much honor, no doubt beyond my real worth. I served two
terms as chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, and at
one time was nominated and ran for railroad commissioners, in which
race I was defeated. Later on I was nominated for Lieutenant Gov-
ernor, and this was the glorious epoch of my life. Owing much to the
magnificent campaign of the candidate for Governor, the voters came
nearly putting me over, but I was defeated by a small majority. I am
still here and hope that I may remain for the balance of life and have
the pleasure of enjoying the beautiful climate and the fine associations
of the good people of this state.
I have up to the present time refused to give my age, but, con-
fidentially, will say that I was born in the year 1854, and some of the
old young men insist that I have passed my prime, but one thing is
sure, the real joy of living will prompt me to stay as long as the Lord
is willing, and while I know that I have not always followed the Golden
Rule, I hope that when I pass to the other side, that I may be admitted
to the celestial band and would be happy to play upon any instrument.
I was married in the year 1893 to Miss Elizabeth Doty, of St.
Marys, Ohio. For over twenty-five years we have journeyed along
the pathway of life, encountering some storms, but, taken all in all,
have enjoyed much sunshine, not always having the good things that
money buys, but, compared with others, we have no complaint.
I have been what might be called a temperance man, but not a
bigoted one. In politics I am a democrat, and sincerely hope that the
effort for a world combination may succeed in eliminating the great
curse of war and may bring a real democracy w-hich means genuine
peace and comfort to the inhabitants of the world.
I am a member of the Knights of Columbus and of the Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks.
The photograph accompanying this sketch will be criticised by those
knowing me best as not a fair copy. I have by special contract rewarded
the photographer for removing the many defects that might change the
present handsome appearance.
Timothy Spellacy.
90 LOS ANGELES
Edwin S. Rowley has been a factor in Los Angeles financial affairs
for thirty years, and has had his home in the city since 1893. It is said
that he made twelve distinct visits to southern California before perma-
nently locating.
One of the institutions of greatest integrity and strength in south-
ern California is the Guaranty Trust & Savings Bank, with resources
of over twenty-eight million dollars and whose home at Spring and
Seventh streets is one of the landmarks of the Los Angeles district.
The name of Edwin S. Rowley has always appeared in a modest rela-
tionship to this bank, but he shares the credit with M. N. Avery, its
president, in the founding of the institution and as a member of its
Hoard of Directors Mr. Rowley has contributed much to its growth and
prosperity.
Edwin S. Rowley was born nt ( )shkosh, Wisconsin, February 18,
1857, son of Edwin A. and Sarah James (Sears) Rowley. His father,
who was born at Shorheim in Addison county, Vermont, and was edu-
cated in Middlebury College of his native state, became a lawyer and
for many 3'ears had a successful practice at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to
which state he removed in 1848, when Wisconsin was still a territory.
Sarah James Sears was born in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts,
and spent her early life until the time of her marriage at Chelsea. Michi-
gan. Edwin S. Rowley is the only son of four children. He has one
sister living, Mrs. W. M. Sheldon, at Palo Alto.
Mr. Rowley spent ten years of his early life at Oshkosh and ten years
at Niles, Michigan, and completed his education in those two cities.
At the age of twenty he went to South Dakota and there became identi-
fied with banking. During ten years spent in Dakota Territory he or-
ganized and was managing head of a number of banks, making his home
while there at Woonsocket and Canton, South Dakota. For about seven
years Mr. Rowley was a resident of Omaha and connected with the
L'nion National Bank of that city.
He is a member of all the local Masonic bodies. He also belongs
to the Los Angeles Athletic Club and was on its Board of Directors
five years, during which time the club building was constructed. He is a
member of the California Club and the Los Angeles Country Club.
Mr. Rowley married Miss Kate L. I'endexter, of Conway. New
Hampshire. Their daughter is Mrs. Thomas C. Ridg\vay. Mr. Ridg-
way is a Los .'\ngeles lawyer with offices in the ITnion Oil lluilding,
wliere Mr. Rowley also has his business headc|uarters.
Michael Joseph McGarky. During his twenty-five years active
membership as a member of the Los Angeles bar, Michael Joseph ^Ic-
Garr>' has practiced as a general practitioner, and at the same time has
represented many diverse and important interests, and his name needs
no heralding as one of the prominent members of the bar of Southern
California. He is a son of the late Daniel M. McGarry, a prominent
business man and benefactor of Los Angeles, whose record appears on
other pages of this publication.
Michael Joseph McGarry was born in Chicago April Li, 1872, and
was about nine years old when his parents came to Los Angeles. He
bad attended a parochial school in Chicago, and in Los Angeles entered
St. Vincent's College, from which institution he received the honoraiy
degree of Master of Arts in 1911. On leaving St. Vincent's and in
pursuance of the plan of his parents to give their sons a thorough and
careful education, he went abroad and entered Clongowes Wood Col-
FROM THE MOUNlTAINS TO THE SEA 91
lege, in Dublin, Ireland. In 1890, having returned to this country, he
entered Notre Dame University, at Notre Dame, Indiana, and was
graduated from tl:e law department with the degree LL. B. June 21,
1894. He was admitted to the Indiana bar, and on October 9, 1894,
was admitted to practice in California. From that date to the present
Mr. McGarry has been busy with a growing law practice. He is a
director in a number of commercial and mining corporations.
Mr. McGarry has never permitted his name to be considered in
connection with any elective pubHc office, but has rendered valuable
and highly appreciated services in positions that ofi'er opportunity for
a great deal of hard work out of proportion to all the personal honor.
He served four years as a park commissioner and two years as a fire
commissioner, and in both cases instituted a number of improvements
that were essential to the proper growth and development of the city at
the time. Mr. McGarry is independent of partisan control so far as
politics is concerned, and is governed entirely by the best interests of
the community, state and nation. He has been a student of politics
and economics for many years, and has seldom been interested in any
of the faddist organizations for improving some item of government,
but is ready to support any broad and well considered program for
good government as applied to all interests concerned.
He is a charter member of the Newman Club, a member of the
Chamber of Commerce, of the County, State and American Bar Asso-
ciations, has been an officer in the Knights of Columbus, is past exalted
ruler of Lodge No. 99, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and
is past state president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
At Chicago, May 10, 1898, he married Mary Evelyn Quinlan,"
daughter of T. A. Quinlan Sr. and Alice Ladd, of Chicago. Mr. and
Mrs. McGarry have four children,, named Florence, Paul. Madeleine
and Evelyn.
Paul Ovf.rtoj;, general counsel for the Los Angeles Gas & Electric
Corporation, studied law under the instruction of two of the most emi-
nent justices of the United States Supreme Court at Washington, and
has had an unusualh- wide range of duties in his profession, having
spent one year in the Philippine Islands, though the greater part of his
])rofessional career has been in Los Angeles.
He was born at Willis, Texas, March 18. 1879, son of Colonel
James Frank and Mary L. (Sturgeon) (.)verton. In his native slate he
had a public school e.hv^ition, but during 18').=^-9('i lived in Washnigton,
D. C, and at that tinit lunl as his preceptor^ in law Justices Harlan and
Urewer. in I'XH) lie i:irailuated LL. 1'.. from the Law Department of
Cornell Uni\er^ily, and in the same year was admitted to the Texas
bar. Lie [jracliced alMuit two years in San Antoiiio and in 1902 re-
moved to Califtjrnia and was admitted to the bar in October of that
year. He has since been admitted to the Circuit and l^istrict I'ederal
Courts of California. In Los .\ngeles he was first associated with Dun-
ning & Craig, attorneys for the Wholesalers Board of Trade. In 1903
he accepted the ap]wintment of Assistant Attorney (jeneral of the Phil-
ippine Islands, and was al)sent in the Orient iierforming his official du-
ties until 1904. Returning to Los .\ngeles, Mr. ( )verton became asso-
ciated with the Los Angeles Gas & Electric Corporation, at first as
assistant general counsel and since 1915 as general counsel in charge of
the entire legal department. As counsel for this corporation he has
lieen engaged in important litigation involving intricate constitutional
92 LOS ANGELES
questions concerning the regulation and control of public utilites gen-
erally as well as the conflict between municipalities and public utilities.
Mr. Overton is a past president of Cornell University Club of
Southern California, a member of the University Club, Los Angeles
County Bar Association, California State Bar Association, and is a
thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner. He is a past
master of West Lake Lodge No. 392, F. and A. M.
Ferdinand Randall Bain. As a resident of Los Angeles Mr.
Bain is best known as president of the Southern Counties Gas Com-
pany, in which he acquired a large interest some years ago. He first
served as vice-president and general manager. Mr. Bain had been a
successful financier and business man in New York and Poughkeepsie,
where he laid the foundation of the large interests and the reputation
which followed him to the West.
He was born at Chatham, New York, May 3, 1861, son of Milton
and Charlotte M. (Nash) Bain. His father, a native of Columbia county,
New York, who was educated in the Claverick institute, became a New
York state farmer, but in 1849 joined a party of twenty-four men who
chartered a boat at Hudson, New York, commanded by Captain Waldo,
and made a six months voyage to California around the Horn. F'rom
San Francisco the party went to Dutch Gulch and were engaged in
mining there until 1854. They made their return by way of the Isthmus
of Panama, the journey only requiring two months. After that Milton
Bain engaged in farming in Dutchess county, New York, until his death.
F"erdinand R. Bain attended private schools at Dover Plains, and
in 1878 graduated from Bishop's Preparatory School at Poughkeepsie.
His parents died in that year, and he gave up his plans for a college
education. For about twenty-five years he was in the real estate and
investment business at Poughkeepsie and New York and in that time
became a prominent figure in the financial and political life of the city.
One of his first large transactions was the purchase of the street railway
system of Poughkeepsie. For two years he was its president and
general manager. After selling that property to a syndicate he became
associated with Benjamin B. Odell, one of New York's best known gover-
nors, and bought the Electric Light and Gas Companies of Newburgh
and Poughkeepsie. He was president of that corporation one year. After
that his interests rapidly broadened and expanded and he became recog-
nized as one of the leading figures in backing, railroad and public utility
circles in New York state. For two years he was president of the Pough-
keepsie Gas and Electric Company. He was also president of the Varick
Realty Company, owners of a square Ijlock of property in the heart of
New York City's business district. A'Ir. Bain was also a director in the
Farmers and Afanufacturers National Bank of Poughkeepsie. After 1904
he disposed of most of his Poughkeepsie holdings, except his interest
in the Gas Company and the bank, and had his headquarters in New
York City, at 35 Wall street. For about seven years he was out of active
touch with Inisiness affairs, and spent most of the time traveling.
Mr. Bain served as a city alderman at Poughkeepsie in 1886-90,
and was then elected a supervisor of Dutchess county for two years. In
1894 he was appointed city assessor for the purpose of reorganizing the
assessment system, and filled that office two years. For fourteen years
he was secretary of the Dutchess County Agricultural Society.
In 1912 the southern counties surrounding Los Angeles were but
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 93
poorly supplied with gas, the business small and conditions very poor.
Mr. Bain took over the plants and business then existing at I^'ullerton,
.Anaheim, Orange and Santa Ana and began improvements. He furnished
the capital and gave the business the benefit of his personal care and
experience, with the result that the Southern Counties Gas Compi^ny of
today is one of the remarkable institutions of southern California.
The great growth is shown in the following comparisons: June 1, 1912,
tlie company was started. At that time they supplied gas to but six
towns, while at the present 50 towns are supplied. At first they supplied
6,000,000 feet per month, while now the supply is 500,000,000 feet per
month. The original 3,200 meters have been increased to 60,000, and
the receipts hive been increased from $90,000 per year to $2,250,000.
They now extend to the outlying towns, the benefits and savings of
natural gas which had previously been wasted. They have over 1,200
miles of "distributing mains. The single oflke that did duty at the begin-
ning has given place to two entire floors in the Corporation Building.
The Southern Counties Gas Company supplies over 55,000 consumers,
and serves a population of over 3,000,000.
Mr. Bain is a member of Triune Lodge, A. F. and A. M., at
Poughkeepsie, is a member of the California Club, the Los Angeles
Countrv Club, the Santa Bnrbara Country Club, the Downtown Club of
New York City, the Midday Club of Chicago and the Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce.
At Poughkeepsie December 9. 1885, ]\Ir. Bain married Miss Hattie
T. Kenworthy. They had three children: Mrs. Ethel M. Sherwood,
of New York city ; Mrs. Roy Davids, of Albany, New York ; and Mrs.
Eliot Atwater, of New York City. February 1, 1911, Mr. Bain married
Gertrude M. Benchley-Miller, who died in June, 1916, at Santa Barbara.
Charles Rittersbacher, who died at Los Angeles April 26, 1919,
was one of the most distinguished of the pioneer oil operators in what
is known as the Mid-Continent Oil Field and also in fields in Cali-
fornia. He was a pioneer producer of petroleum, and though he ex-
perienced the vicissitudes and fortunes incident to an oil operator's life,
he died leaving a generous fortune.
He was born at Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, October 3, 1857, a son
of David and Eleanor Rittersbacher. His father had been a Kansas
pioneer. Charles Rittersbacher acquired his education in the public
schools of Wilkesbarre, but from boyhood had to depend largely upon
his own exertions. He was a machinist by trade, and some years after
leaving home he and his two partners, H. G. Johnson and E. A. Aikin,
established a machine shop at Corsicana, Texas. Corsicana was then
a rapidly developing oil center. During the early eighties Mr. Ritters-
bacher, associated with his partners, and with a modest capital, secured
a rig and drilled an oil prospect in Corsicana. Mr. Rittersbacher always
regarded this as fortunate that his first attempt was successful. They
struck oil, and that was one of the first oil strikes in Texas and was
the beginning of the development which has made the Mid-Continent
field the greatest source of petroleum in America. Mr. Rittersbacher
and his associates formed the American Well Prospecting Company.
While the pioneer well produced oil, there were attendant difficul-
ties that might well have discouraged veterans in the industry. The
operators had none of the modern machinery and appliances for drill-
ing and perfecting a well, and before the casing was completed oil ooz-
ing from the well trickled down the side of a hill. A drayman who
94 LOS ANGELES
was on the scene yielded to the curiosity to see if the oil would burn
and touched a match to the ground, and in an instant the flames shot
up the hill to the well. The machinery was lost and considerable dif-
ficulty was encountered in quenching the fire.
After this pioneer exploit Mr. Rittersbacher gave much of his
time to oil development and for eight years was one of the prominent
operators in the noted fields at Bartlesville, Oklahoma. After selling
his interests there he came to California in 1908. He had been in the
oil business thirty-five years when he died. He had drilled wells in
Louisiana and also had leases on vast tracts near Taft, in Kern County,
California, in what is known as the Mid West Field.
Mr. Rittersbacher was affiliated with the Masonic Otder, the Wood-
men of the World and was a Lutheran in religion.
He married Laura Kraft at Salina, Kansas, thirty years ago. She
was nineteen years old when married and was born near Johnstown,
Pennsylvania. Her people moved to Salina, Kansas, when she was
five years of age. Mrs. Rittersbacher has a vivid memory of life on
the Kansas prairies when she was a girl. The home of her parents was
destroyed by a cyclone, the entire north wall having been nipped away.
Mrs. Rittersbacher and four children survive her husband: Elmer,
Etta, Edgar and Elsie. They are now planning the erection of a per-
manent home in southern California.
The late Mr. Rittersbacher was vice president and general man-
ager of the American Ventura Oil Company. During the war with
Germany his resources were generously used for supporting various
war causes, a large amount being invested in Liberty Bonds. The
family were all personally active in the war, the children serving either
in the army and navy or in Red Cross work.
Benjamin E. Page. The many important connections of Mr. Page
as a lawyer and executive official emphasizes the truth of the assertion
that he is one of the versatile members of his profession in soutnern
California. He has spent most of his life in and around Los Angeles,
and is as prominent socially as he is professionally. Mr. Page has
specialized in banking, mining and corporation law, and as financial and
legal adviser to several large financial corporations it is said that millions
of dollars have been invested in southern California under his advice and
supervision.
Benjamin Edwin Page was born at North Haven, Connecticut,
October 16, 1877, son of Dr. Benjamin Maltby and Cornelia (Blakeslee)
Page. -He represents old New England stock on both sides. His great-
grandfather was a West India merchant and later a New England manu-
facturer. His grandfather, Rev. Benjamin St. John Page, a graduate
of Yale Theological School, was for many years prominent as a minister
of the Congregational and Presbyterian chui-ches. Dr. Benjamin M.
Page had a successful career as a physician 'n Cleveland, Ohio, but on
account of ill health gave up his practice and came to California in 1873.
Benjamin E. Page attended the public schools of Pasadena, graduat-
ing from high school in 1895, and in 1899 received his degree A. B.
from Leland Stanford University. He studied law in the Columbia
Law School of New York, graduating LL. B. in 1902. He was admitted
to the bar of New York, soon afterward to that of California, and has
also been admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court. He
began practice at Los Angeles in the firm of Bicknell, Gibson & Trask,
and a few months later formed a partnership with Qarence A. Miller,
( (^'A^^M^i-"— ^ i^c^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 95
which was terminated by the death of Mr. Miller in 1906. At Mr. Page's
request Joseph R. Patton came from San Jose to Los Angeles and they
practiced together until the death of Air. Patton in 1910. Since then Mr.
Page has practiced alone, giving practically all his time to corporation,
banking, mining and insurance law.
P'or a number of years he has been the linancial representative of
the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee in its
California business. He was one of the organizers of the Southwestern
Shipbuilding Company, and is its general counsel and a director. He
was formerly general counsel for the Merchants Bank and Trust Com-
pany and helped reorganize it as the Hellman Commercial Trust & Sav-
ings Bank, of which he is president, director and general counsel. He
was one of the organizers and is a director of the Occidental Life Insur-
ance Company, vice-president and director of the Aronson & Company,
a director of the State Bank of San Pedro, a director of the First
National Bank of Alhambra, counsel for the Merchants' National Bank
of Los Angeles, and has represented a number of important copper com-
panies of Arizona and Nevada. He has also been counsel for the Los
Angeles Realty Board, the Civic Center Association and a number of
real estate firms.
For several years Mr. Page was a member of the Pasadena Board
of Education, and was chairman of the board for over four years. He
has been especially interested in his home city of Pasadena, but has
also lent public-spirited co-operation to all the larger movements affect-
ing southern California in general. He is a member of the California
Club, Midwick Country Club, Valley Hunt Club, Cerritos Gun Club,
Squirrel Inn Club, Los Angeles County Bar Association, and is a re-
publican and a member of the Congregational Church.
March 1, 1906, he married Marie Markham, eldest daughter of
former Governor Henry H. Markham of California. They have four
children: Eleanor, a student in the Westridge School for Girls; Ben-
jamin Markham, bom in 1911; Henrv, born in 1913, and Robert, born
in 1919.
Rev. Michael O'Gorman, who was educated and ordained to the
priesthood of the Catholic church in Ireland, came to California and all
his active work has been done in the Los Angeles district. He now has
one of the large afid prosperous churches in Pasadena.
He was born in Cavan, Province of Ulster, Ireland, August I.t,
1883, son of Andrew and Anne (Collins) O'Gorman. To the qge of
fourteen he was a pupil in the national schools of Ireland and after that
for five years took his classical course in St. Patrick's Seminary at
Cavan. At the age of nineteen he entered upon his theological and
philosophical courses in St. Patrick's College at Carlow, where he was
ordained June 13, 1909.
Almost immediately after his ordination Father O'Gorman set out
for the United States, and at Los Angeles on October 27, 1909, was ap-
pointed assistant pastor at the Cathedral. Three months later he be-
came assistant pastor of Our Lady of Loretto parish, and remained there
diligent and faithful to his duties eight and a half years. Then caine his
appointment as pastor of the Holy Family Church in South Pasadena.
This parish has had a rapid growth under Father O'Gorman and now
contains a hundred thirty-two families, and property beside the church
is to be improved with a parochial school, to be conducted by the Sis-
ters of the Holy Name. Father O'Gorman has recently added to his
96 LOS ANGELES
responsibilities by establishing a new parish at Monterey Park, for-
merly Ramona Acres. Eighty-two families are in that parish, and in a
temporary building Mass is said every Sunday morning. At the close
of the war it is planned to erect a permanent church building in that
parish in 1918.
Father O'Gorman is a third degree Knight of Columbus and is a
mjember of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Frank C. Collier has been a well-known lawyer in the southwest
for a number of years, and his own services and abilities have contributed
much to the general prestige of the name Collier in the law, business and
public affairs. His father, David C. Collier was one of those interested
in the Kansas Border troubles, removing to Colorado where he was one
of the first white men in the Territory, and later becoming judge of
the Gilpin County Court. He was for many years a prominent lawyer
at San Diego. Frank C. Collier is a brother of Colonel D. C. Collier,
who has been active as a lawyer, banker, railroad builder and was di-
rector general and later president of the Panama-California Exposition
at San Diego in 1915.
Frank C. Collier was born in a mining camp at Central City, Cali-
fornia, September 14, 1878, a son of David C. and Martha Maria (John-
son) Collier. In 1884 his parents moved to San Diego, where he grew
up, graduating from the high school of that city in 1896. He took his
law work jn the University of Michigan, graduating LL. B. in 1901. He
was admitted the spme year to the bar of California and Michigan, was
admitted to the District, Circuit and Federal Courts in 1903 and in
1908 to the United States Supreme Court. He began practice with the
firm of Collier & Smith at San Diego, the senior partner being his
brother. During 1902 he established his office at Prescott, Arizona. Mr.
Collier returned to Los Angeles in 1903, and for three years followed a
general practice, his clientage involving many interests in the south-
west. During 1906-08 he was a member of the firm of Kemp & Collier,
his partner being John W. Ivemp. Mr. Collier spent the greater part of
the year, 1909, abroad with residence at London, doing some special
work in England. In the latter part of 1909 he returned to Los Angeles
and then became associated with Oliver O. Clark under the firm name
of Collier & Clark. Since then Mr. Collier has steadily practiced, with
offices in the H. W. Hellman Building. He and his firm have repre-
sented as attorneys the Los Angeles Wholesale Jewefers Board of Trade,
the Baltimore Oil Company, of which Mr. Collier was assistant secre-
tary, the Los Angeles Record, the Anaconda Petroleum Company, of
which he is secretary, the Edmund G. Peycke Company, the Bekins Van
& Storage Company, the Freconee Company, of which he was secre-
tary, and the Peerless Pneumatic Clutch Company, of which he was for
several years the secretary and is now counsel.
He is a knight commander of the Court of Honor, a thirty-second
degree Scottish Rite Mason, and a member of the Jonathan Club and
the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. December 11, 1905, he mar-
ried Lucy Kate Pinkerton.
W. A. BoNYNGE during the past thirty years has been identified with
a number of important business and financial undertakings at Los An-
geles, and in insurance and banking circles his name is probably as well
known as that of any other man in southern California.
He was born in Lancashire, England, January 22, 1855, son of
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 97
Thomas and Louisa (Taylor) Bonyngc. He was privately Uitoretl and
also attended Alston College until the age of seventeen. He spent one
year in the study of medicine in the Royal College of Surgeons at Dub-
lin, but abandoned the profession to come to America. He located at
one of the most interesting points in the west at the time, Virginia City,
Nevada, where he was engaged in mining at the famous Comstock Lode
until 1880. Mr. Bonynge then removed to San .\ntonio, Texas, where
he was engaged in the fire insurance business, and also organized the
.Merchants' and JMechanics Building and Loan .Association, which he
served as secretary.
Froni San Antonio .Mr. Bonynge turned to Los .Vngeles in 1888.
Here he resumed the fire insurance business and in 1903 established the
Bonynge & Girdleson Company, a well known and prominent fire insur-
ance agency in wliich he still owns a half interest. That is only one of
a number of important connections he formed. In 1889 he organized
the Home Investment Building & Loan Association, and has ever since
been its secretary and director. In 1903 he organized the Commercial
National Bank, of which he is also president and a director. Mr.
lionynge is a director in the National Bank of Riverside, and a director
of the Golden State Bank of Anaheim.
Fraternally he has been especially prominent in Odd Fellowship,
has filled all the chairs in the order, and was grand master of the state
in 1899-1900. He is a member of South Gate Lodge, A. F. & A. M.,
and also a Scottish Rite ]\Iason and Shriner. He is a member of the
Jonathan Club, Los .Angeles ' Country Club, Chamber of Commerce and
Municipal League. In politics he is a republican and is a member of
the Episcopal Church.
At Virginia City. .Vevatla, in January, 1878, Mr. Bonynge married
Miss Mary Da\is. .Mrs. Bonynge, who died in October, 191.^, was the
mother of two children, Charles W., now a lieutenant in the Medical
Department of the United States N^avy ; and W. A., Jr., assistant cashier
of the Commercial National Bank of Los Angeles. In January, 1917,
Mr. Bonynge married at Los Angeles Margaret W. Douthit.
St. Joseph's Ca.tholic Parish. The founding of St. Joseph's par-
ish may be dated from December 29, 1888, under which date the Rt.
Rev. Bishop Francisco Mora appointed the Rev. Joseph Florian Bartsch,
a secular priest, as rector pro tem. Under his direction the frame church
fronting on Santee street between Twelfth and Pico w^as built and fur-
nished at an expense of over nine thousand dollars.
Father Bartsch was succeeded in August, 1890, by the Rev. A. Reid-
haar, and he in turn in October, 1892, by Rev. John B. Metzler, who
built the parish house. He closed his accounts on August 11, 1893,
leaving a debt of $1,080 and a balance in the treasury of two cents. The
parish had been entrusted to the Franciscan Fathers of the St. Louis,
Alissouri, Province, and the well-known Rev. Victor Aertker. O. F. M.,
was sent to become the next pastor. He was a zealous and good priest,
and his energy soon brought forth results. Early in 1894 he added to
'he frame church, built a commodious school in 1895, which is the pres-
ent Santee rooming house. The enlarged frame church becoming in-
adequate Father Victor made systematic preparation for the building of
a large brick structure. The necessary property was acquired at Tv.-elfth
and Los Angeles streets. The plans were drawn by the Franciscan
architect for a church in pure Gothic style. The cornerstone was laid
on July 16, 1901, by the Rt. Rev. Bishop George Montgomery^, and the
98 LOS ANGELES
structure was completed early in 1903 without the slightest mishap. It
was dedicated on May 3, 1903, by the Apostolic Delegate Diomede Fal-
conio, O. F. M., Archbishop of Larissa and later Cardmal, who had been
invited to Los Angeles for the purpose by Rev. Father Victor. That
day a gala day not only for St. Joseph's parish and the Catholics of the
town, but for all Los Angeles. Very appropriately the mayor of the
city, together with the Very Rev. Patrick Harnett, administrator of the
vacant diocese, were on the reception committee. A public reception
was tendered the Apostolic Delegate on May 4th in the old Hazard's
Pavilion. At the dedication services Monsignor Falconio officiated,
Rt. Rev. Thomas Grace, Bishop of Sacramento, sang the Pontifical Mass,
Archbishop Montgomery, then of San Francisco, assisted in the sanctu-
ary and preached the dedicatory sermon. About twenty-five other pre-
lates and priests both of the secular and regular clergy were in at-
tendance.
During the same administration the old frame church was con-
verted into a school and the residence of the Fathers was built at the
same time as the church. When Father Victor left Los Angeles in 1904
the church was practically paid for, and no greater debt remained than
he had found when coming here eleven years previous. In August, 1904,
Rev. Raphael Fuhr was appointed pastor. He acquired for the parish
the building at the southwest corner of Pico and Santee, erected by the
St. Josephs Society. In 1905 he resolved to build a brick school with
basement and an auditorium with a seating capacity of about a thousand.
The cornerstone was blessed and laid by Rt. Rev. Thomas J. Conaty in
May, 1905. The large building was completed early in 1907. It stands
south of the church and faces Los Angeles street. Up to this time the
school had been in the hands of the Dominican Sisters. Father Raphael
secured the services of the Franciscan Sisters, whose mother house is at
Stella Niagara, near Buffalo, New York.
In 1909 Rev. Cassian Tritz became pastor of St. Joseph's. With
much energy he set about the herculean task of reducing the oppres-
sive load of debt, and his success in that was perhaps the most notable
achievement. Specifications were also made and contracts let for the
great and beautiful pipe organ, the last thing required to make the
church and school perfectly equipped in every line. Failing health made
the retirement of Father Cassian Tritz necessary and in August, 1912,
the present incumbent Father Theophilus Richardt took charge. The
organ was installed about Christmas, 1912, and was soon paid for. The
able services of Professor John L. Jung as organist and choir director
were secured, and he also teaches the two upper grades of boys in the
school and directs the singing of all the children.
Conditions being now very normal, the principal task of the pastor
was to keep things running along smoothly, to maintain the large group
of buildings in repair and to reduce the debt. The house on Pico and
Santee was converted into an apartment house. Street assessments for
the widening of Los Angeles street, for the paving of Pico, Santee and
Twelfth streets, cost the parish upwards of fifteen thousand dollars.
Costly and beautiful vestments were secured and the statuary of the
church was polychromed anew. For some years the School Societv had
by monthly contributions assisted in paying the largely increased sal-
aries of the teaching staff. As soon as the debt of the parish was within
easv control Father Theophilus Richardt laid the foundation for a per-
manent school fund to be brought to such generous proportions that
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 99
from the interest the salaries may be defrayed and school books fur-
nished all the children free of cost.
The assistant priests of St. Joseph's during the last six years have
been: Father George Wehmeyer, O. F. M.; Father Ferdinand Kenny,
O. F. M. ; Father Julius Gliebe, U. F. M., and Father John G. Koerner,
O. F. M.
Something should now be said concerning the territorial limits of
St. Joseph's parish. Specifically defined they are : In the west from
Ninth and Hill, south on Hill to I'^onrteenth, east to Main, south to Six-
teenth, east to Los Angeles, south to Washington. In the south along
Washington to the Los Angeles River, in the east along the river to
Seventh, in the north from river west on Seventh to Central, south to
Ninth, west to Hill, the starting point. This territory is inhabited by
people of the laboring class and has many poor, among whom the parish
conference of St. Vincent de Paul has done much good. A crying need
of the territory is a public playground site for the great number of poor
children. This territory is gradually being invaded by public markets,
storae;e houses, wholesale houses, laundries, carbarns ; it is cut up by
the tracks of the railroad yards, by trunk lines of the Pacific Electric
and by spur tracks. The attendance at St. Joseph's is to a great extent
made up of transients from rooming and apartment houses. The streets
in the territory are very irregularly laid out and their care and mainte-
nance are an unusual case of municipal neglect in this great and beau-
tiful city.
Father Theophilus Richardt, pastcfr of St. Joseph's, is not only a
man of great ability as a pastoral leader, but a man of most unusual tal-
ents and of broad and liberal association gained from extensive experi-
ence in different parts of the world. He was born in the Province of
Saxony, Germany, January 31, 1869, son of George and Christina Rich-
ardt. Beginning his education in parochial schools, at the age of eleven
he came to America and entered St. Joseph's College at Teutopolis, Illi-
nois, from which he graduated in 1886. He then took the Franciscan
habit, and was a student of philosophy in the monastery at Ouincy, Illi-
nois, until 1890, and took his course in theology in the Franciscan Semi-
nary at St. Louis, Missouri. He was ordained in 1893, and after 1894
became professor at St. Francis Solano College at Ouincy, Illinois,
where he remained eight years. He then went abroad to Rome, and at-
tended the International College of San Antonio until 1903. On return-
ing to America Father Richardt was stationed at Santa Barbara, Cali-
fornia, and for nine years taught theology in the Old Mission. In 1912,
as above noted, he was made pastor of St. Joseph's Church in Los
Angeles.
Bertram D. Lackey, well known in Los Angeles financial circles,
started out in life to become an artist, for which he had no incon-
siderable qualification and talent, but now for a number of years has
found all his time and energies absorbed in directing and managing in-
dustrial and sales departments for several corporations, and in Los
Angeles as a member of the well-known firm of Wilson, Lackey &
Comnany.
Mr. Lackey was born at Akron, Ohio, May 13, 1882, a son of Rev.
Raymond and Julia (Delaney) Lackey. His father, also a native of
Akron, was a graduate of Heidelberg University at Tiffin, Ohio, entered
the Methodist ministry, and for many years was head of a large and
prosperous congregation in Akron. He retired in 1914 and has since
made his home at Los Angeles.
100 LOS ANGELES
Bertram D. Lackey graduated from the Akron High School in
1900 and soon afterward went to Philadelphia and found employment
in the Art Department of the Ladies' Home Journal, doing general
drawing and also studying art for a period of four years. He then
abandoned art for business, and became connected with the American
Agricultural Company as salesman, and later was sales manager of
that large organization. In 1909 he went to Jacksonville, Florida, as
vice president and general manager of the Southern Menhaden Com-
pany, a subsidiary of the Dupont Powder Company of Wilmington,
Delaware. While in the South Mr. Lackey erected the plant, bought
the steamers, and otherwise outfitted and equipped the company for
business. In 1913, having resigned, he returned to Philadelphia and
took charge of the Bond Department of Newport, Wilson & Company,
members of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. Mr. Lackey came to
Los Angeles in 1915 and joined Mr. Wilson in organizing the Wilson,
Lackey & Company, of which he is secretary and treasurer. They have
a large and prosperous business as bond brokers and dealers in listed
securities. Mr. Lackey is secretary of the Conejo Country Club, a
member of the Brentwood Country Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club
and the Press Club. Recently he bought the beautiful Earl Rogers
home in the Wilshire section of Los Angeles. He married at Jackson-
ville, Florida, May 1, 1912, Betty Farrell.
Watt L. Moreland. Twenty years would about cover the history
of the automobile industry, and that period has been coincident with the
active term of Watt L. Moreland's career. He is one of the older auto-
mobile men in the country, and his experience makes him familiar with
every phase of the development of American automobiles. Mr. Moreland
has been a resident of Los Angeles for over fifteen years, and is gen-
eral manager of the Moreland Motor Truck Company, one of the
larger manufacturers of motor trucks on the Pacific Coast.
Mr. Moreland was born at Muncie, Indiana, February 11, 1879, a
son of John B. and Alethea (Grice) Moreland. He attended grammar
and high school there, and at the age of eighteen directed his energies
into the machinist's trade. For three years he was with the Republic
Iron and Steel Company, beginning at wages of fifty cents a day. Be-
sides what his work brought him in the way of skill and experience he
carried on and completed a course of mechanical engineering with the
International Correspondence School. His next service was as diemaker
with the Toledo Machine and Tool Company at Toledo, Ohio. Three
months later he removed to Cleveland, and went to work for one of the
pioneer concerns in the automobile industry, the Winton Carriage Com-
pany. He was in the assembling and testing department, and later was
transferred to the New York branch, where he had charge of the me-
chanical department. From New York Mr. Moreland returned to his
home state and at Kokomo became assistant in designing and building
racing cars for the Haynes-Apperson Automobile Company. Those
familiar with the automobile industry will recall that it was some of the
racing cars put out by the Haynes-Apperson Automobile Company that
took part and made such a splendid showing in the first endurance race
in America.
As a vacation Mr. Moreland spent some time in Los Angeles in
1902 and became so fascinated with the country that he determined to
remain. Soon afterward the Magnolia Automobile Company was or-
ganized by him, with plant at Riverside, for the manufacture of auto-
J<"ROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 101
mobiles. He remained there a year and a half as general manager of
the company. About that time the company became involved in some
law suits over patents which obstructed their business, and Mr. More-
land accordingly returned to Los Angeles and for a time was identified
with the Auto Vehicle Company, and later with other similar concerns.
In April, 1911, he established the Moreland Motor Truck Company, of
which he is general manager, while the other executive officers are R.
H. Raphael, president; C. J. Kubach, vice president, and J. L. Armer,
secretary and treasurer. The Moreland Motor Truck Company manu-
factures a general line of trucks, which are now found employed in in-
dustries and with many individual owners all up and down the Pacific
Coast, from South America to Canada, while many of them have been
exported to Australia.
In May, 1902, at Riverside, California, Mr. Moreland married Miss
Margaret Elkins. They have three children, Margaret, Harriet and
Watt. Mr. Moreland is a republican, a member of the Jonathan and
Los Angeles Athletic Clubs, the Gamut Club, the Los Angeles Press
Club, and in business circles is also well known as president of the Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the California
State Manufacturers' Association.
Henderson Hayward, M. D. A resident of Los Angeles for the
past twenty-five years, Henderson Hayward is a retired physician, prac-
ticed for many years after the Civil war in the East, but in Los Angeles
has been chiefly identified with business affairs.
He was born in York County, Pennsylvania, November 18, 1844,
son of Dr. Joseph and Sally (Brearley) Hayward. From 1855 to 1858
he attended the Cumberland Valley Institute at Mechanicsburg, Pennsyl-
vania, and took up the study of medicine in Georgetown University at
Washington. Previous to graduation he had entered government service,
and from October, 1864, until April, 1865, was hospital steward in the
United States Army, under Colonel L. A. Edwards. When his superior
was called away to other duties he left Dr. Hayward as chief clerk of
the Medical Department of the. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and
Abandoned Lands.
After a period of semi-retirement and recuperation during 1869-71,
Dr. Hayward located in Delaware County, near Philadelphia, and prac-
ticed medicine steadily for over twenty years. Impaired health com-
pelled him to give up his profession, and in December, 1894, he came to
Los Angeles, where he has since been a permanent resident. For a time
he was secretary and treasurer of the Coalinga Oil Company, and subse-
quently served as director in the Reed Crude and the Rice Ranch Oil
Company. From 1898 for seven years Dr. Hayward gave most of his
time to his real estate investments, but for ten years has had no interests
to interfere seriously with his retirement. However, he has served as
director of the Security Savings Bank and Hellman Bank. He is a
member of the Los Angeles Country and University Clubs.
Dr. Hayward has been twice married. For his second wife he mar-
ried in San Francisco, April 22, 1897, Julia Dibble. He had eight chil-
dren by his first wife and one daughter by his present marriage.
102 LOS ANGELES
Edgar S. Dulin is a native of southern California, and for a num-
ber of years has been prominent in financial and business circles at
Pasadena and Los Angeles, being one of the active executives in the
well-known organization of the Blankenhorn-Hunter Company, invest-
ment bankers.
He was born at San Diego, California, November 4, 1892, son of
Edgar G. Dulin. His father, who was born at Liberty, Missouri, Octo-
ber 21, 1852, was educated there, and later became associated with his
uncles, the famous Studebaker brothers of South Bend, Indiana, as
manager of the Kansas City branch of the Studebaker Brothers Car-
riage Factory. Later he was a rancher at Russell, Kansas, until 1888,
when he removed to San Diego, where he was instrumental in organiz-
ing the Pacific Wood and Coal Company. Later he was in business
in San Francisco in connection with the Pacific Coast Syrup Company
and other large enterprises. He retired in 1908 and is now a resident
of Los Angeles. At Kansas City, Missouri, he married Jennie Garrett-
son, daughter of E. A. Garrettson, a prominent banker in the middle
west.
Edgar S. Dulin attended school in San Diego until 1899, later in
San Francisco for two years, was in a private school one year, and then
in the grammar and high school of Los Angeles until 1912. For two
years he was a student in the University of California. Since leaving
college Mr. Dulin has been almost continuously associated with the
Blankenhorn-Hunter Company, at first as salesman in the bond de-
partment at Pasadena. In 1915 he was made secretary and treasurer
of the corporation, and has been largely responsible for the large busi-
ness developed by this firm in the handling of high-class bonds and
other securities. In September, 1918, Mr. Dulin left business afifairs
to enter the naval aviation station at Seattle, Washington, and remained
there until honorably discharged in December, 1918. He then returned
to Pasadena as vice president of the Blankenhorn-Hunter Company,
and on March 1, 1919, the Blankenhorn-Hunter-Dulin Company was
formed for the purpose of taking over the bond and stock business of
the older organization. Ofifices are maintained in Los Angeles, Pasa-
dena and San Francisco. Mr. Dulin is now vice president and a director
of both companies.
He is also well known in social affairs, being a member of the
California Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Midwick Country Club,
Overland Club, the last two being in Pasadena; is a member of the
college fraternity. Delta Kappa Epsilon, and of the high school fra-
ternity. Gamma Eta Kappa. Mr. Dulin is a republican voter. In Los
Angeles, November 10, 1915, he married Sneadele Miles. Her father
is J. H. Miles, a well-known middle west banker. They have one
daughter, Marjorie Jane.
The Hoover Art Company originated in Hollywood in 1913. Two
men well versed in the technical and artistic phases of their business,
Mr. Hoover and Mr. Sartov, established it as an art exhibition and for
the reproduction of oil and water paintings. Gradually the business was
specialized as exclusive photography until now the company is without
question first and foremost in this line on the Pacific Coast, and no
other organization can compare with their facilities and the experience
and skill represented by the technical organization.
Mr. Hoover sold his interest in the business in May, 1918, and in
the same month the Hoover Art Company was incorporated, with Mr.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 103
Hendrick Sartov as president, and William P. Harmon secretary and
treasurer.
Mr. Sartov, whose experience in photography and the allied arts
has brought him well-earned international fame, is the professional head
of the studios. The work of these studios has been exhibited at the
American Photographers Association's exhibitions, at the Pittsburg Salon
of Pictorial Photography, and also at the London Salon of the Royal
Photographic Society. Many awards and honors have been paid the
work.
Hendrick Sartov was born in Denmark March 18, 1885, son of M.
E. and Nelsine Sartov. When he was two years old his parents moved
to Kolding, Denmark, where he attended the public schools to the age
of fourteen. Following that came a five years' course of apprentice-
ship to learn the photographic art. During the next three years he had
charge of a photographic studio and was then in charge of a studio at
Copenhatjen, Denmark, three years. Another year was spent in the em-
ploy of a large photographic studio at Kiel, Germany. He then re-
sumed his work at Copenhagen and from there came to America, spend-
ing the first six months in Minneapolis in the studio of Sweet Brothers,
photographers. He then went into business for himself, and at the end
of three years sold out and moved west to Hollywood, where he became
associated with Mr. Hoover.
Mr. William P. Harmon, secretary and treasurer of the company,
and in charge of its business details, was born at Princeton, Wisconsin,
March 31, 1865, son of H. H. Harmon. He attended public school and
for three years worked as an apprentice printer in the office of the
Princeton Republican. Going from there to Milwaukee he was em-
ployed in various capacities with the Evening Wisconsin for five years,
after which he was a printer in Minneapolis until 1894. In that year
he returned to Princeton, Wisconsin, and bought the Princeton Repub-
lican, publishing it for two years. Returning to Minneapolis he formed
the partnership of Hahn & Harmon, printers, and sold out his business
there in February, 1918, to come to I^os Angeles. Here in May of the
same year he bought an interest in the Hoover Art Company.
Louis Sentous, Jr., French consul at Los Angeles, has spent nearly
all his life in this city, and is a member of a prominent old French
family of southern California.
His father, Jean Sentous, was born in the Department of Haute
Garonne, France, January 1, 1837. He was schooled there and was
employed in his father's general store to the age of eighteen. Coming
to the United States after a long voyage on a sailing vessel around Cape
Horn, he arrived at San Francisco. He was six months on the ocean.
He went to the mines in Tuolumne county, but in 1860 came to Los An-
geles and established a dairy on West Jeflferson street near Western
avenue. In 1874 he moved to a stock farm at Calabasas in Los An-
geles County. He moved his family back to Los Angeles in 1877, but
retained his farm until 1884, when he sold out and thereafter lived re-
tired at his home on Olive street between Fifth and Sixth streets, op-
posite Central Park. He died April 28, 1903. His wife was a native
of Costa Rica and died May 26, 1918. This well-known old couple had
seven children : Narcisse. of Los Angeles : Louis ; Frank, who is re-
tired and lives at Newhall, California; Camille, who is associated with
his brother Louis in business ; Mrs. Heloise B. Lewis ; Emely, deceased ;
and Mrs. Adele Truitt, of Glendale, California.
104 LOS AiNGELES
The late Jean Sentons was president of the French Benevolent So-
ciety for many years. He was a democrat in politics and a member
of the Catholic Church.
Louis Sentous, Jr., was born in Los Angeles September 25, 1869.
He was liberally educated both in California and abroad. His early
training was the product of the public schools and St. Vincent's College.
In 1880 his father sent him to France, back to the old home in Haute
Garonne, where he attended the Seminary of Pohgnan and the Govern-
ment College at St. Gaudens. After five years of foreign residence he
returned to Los .Angeles in 1885 and re-entered St. Vincent College,
where he graduated in 1887.
Mr. Sentous has been a Los Angeles business man for thirty years.
He was first bookkeeper with his uncle Louis Sentous, Sr., proprietor
of the New Orleans Market for three years. He then acquired a part-
nership in the firm of T. Vache and Company, wholesale wine mer-
chants. Ten years later he sold his interests there and entered the
wholesale produce business with his brother Camille. Li 1904 the Sen-
tous brothers sold that business and formed the Sentous Realty Com-
pany, of which Louis is president. They have a large business in loans,
insurance and real estate.
Mr. Sentous was also president of the Franco-American Baking
Company and president of the French Benevolent Society, having filled
that ofifice in that organization altogether thirteen years. During his
presidency the society more than doubled its membership. He was treas-
urer of the society at one time and was its vice president in 1898-99. In
1910 Stephen Pichon, minister of Foreign Affairs of France, named Mr.
Sentous as French consul of Los Angeles, and he has ably discharged
the duties of that ofifice ever since. He was decorated ofificer of the
French Academy in 1912 by the French government for faithful serv-
ices. Mr. Sentous is a Catholic and a republican.
In Los Angeles January 7, 1895, he married Louise Amestoy.
Their only son, Jean Emile, born in Los Angeles October 23, 1895, is
a graduate of the Los Angeles High School, was with his father in
business for a time, but during the present war has been in the United
.States army with the 85th Spruce Squadron.
Albert Clay Bilicke. The toll exacted by one of the outstanding
tragedies of the great war, the sinking of the Lusitania, on May 7, 1915,
demanded as one of its sacrifices a prominent Los Angeles business man
and capitalist, Albert Clay Bilicke, whose work and influence have more
than won enduring monuments in the Los Angeles business district.
Mr. Bilicke spent most of his life in California. He was born in
Coos County, Oregon, June 22, 1861, and in 1868 his parents removed
to San Francisco. He was a son of Carl Gustavus and Caroline (Sigis-
mund) Bilicke. At San Francisco he attended public schools until 1876,
and followed that with a course in the Heald's Business College.
Then, forty years ago, when he was seventeen years of age, Mr.
Bilicke entered upon his active career as manager of the Cosmopolitan
Hotel at Florence, Arizona. It was as a hotel manager and proprietor
that he laid the foundation of his substantial fortune. After two years
he took the management of the Cosmopolitan Hotel at Tombstone, Ari-
zona, and was also superintendent of the Pedro Consolidated Mining
Company. On returning to California, in 1885, Mr. Bilicke became
proprietor of the Ross House at Modesto, and in 1891 became pro-
prietor of the Pacific Ocean House at Santa Cruz, one of the most
noted high-class resorts of that time.
CL><£JXJU^.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 105
However, the institution with which his name is most familiarly
associated by the thousands who have lived in California temporarily or
permanently is the noted Hollenbeck Hotel of Los Angeles. Mr. Biiicke
became proprietor of this hotel in 1893, and it was under his manage-
ment as president of the owning company that it attained the height
of its popularity and in point of service outrivaled all other similar
institutions for a number of years.
Along with hotel management he accumulated a vast amount of
property as an investor and was foremost in developing this property
by permanent improvements. In 1903 he organized the Bilicke-Rowan
Fireproof Building Company, and the first great fruit of this organiza-
tion was the palatial Hotel Alexandria, erected in 1905, and at the time
the most luxurious hotel in its accommodations in Los Angeles. He
was president of the hotel company until his death. He was also
president of the Bilicke-Rowan Annex Company and the Century Build-
ing Company, organized in 1906; of the Central Fireproof Building
Company, and of the Chester Fireproof Building Company. The last
named erected the Title Insurance Building at Fifth and Spring streets,
the Security Building and the Citizens Bank Building, the latter havmg
been completed about the time of his death. Mr. Biiicke foresaw the
spread of the Los Angeles business district south along Broadway and
Spring street, and showed his faith in that district by investing heavily
in many tracts.
Mr. Biiicke was one of the most prominent of Los Angeles busi-
ness men and had business and social connections that were practically
world wide. He was a member of the Jonathan Club, the Los Angeles
Countr>' Club, Annandale Golf Club, the Valley Hunt Club of Pasadena,
and the Los Angeles Athletic Club. On September 10, 1900, at Niagara
Falls, he married Gladys Huff. Mrs. Biiicke was a passenger on the
Lusitania with her husband, but was one of those saved from that
memorable sea disaster. She now resides in South Pasadena. She is
the mother of three children, Albert Constant, Nancy Caroline and
Carl Archibald.
Melville Torrance Whitaker has been one of the best known in-
surance men in this city for the last thirty years. He has been prominent
in the organization and management of the local Board of Underwriters,
and is president of M. T. Whitaker & Company (Inc.) of this city.
Mr. Whitaker represents an old New York State family. He was
bom in Penn Yan, Yates county, New York, April 26, 1851, and is the
son of Alexander F. and Louise Torrance Whitaker. His family has
played a notable part in the affairs of that section from earliest times.
His great-grandfather, Stephen Whitaker, was one of the first settlers,
coming from Albany in 1799 with oxen teams, after trading a tract of
land near Passaic, New Jersey, for farming land in the new country.
Some of that land is still in the possession of the Whitaker family.
Another ancestor, Nathaniel Whitaker, returned to England in 1756 to
interest the Earl of Dartmouth in founding an Indian school, which after-
ward became Dartmouth College. The portrait of another, Alexander
Whitaker, baptizing Pocahontus, hangs in the rotunda -of the Canitol at
Washington. Mr. Whitaker's parents came to California in 1884 and
made their home with their daughter Helen, the wife of Albert Brigden,
at that time a prominent rancher of Los Angeles county. They are both
buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena.
Melville T. Whitaker received his education in the Oakfield Military
Academy, an Episcopal school near Batavia, New York, and began his
106 LOS ANGELES
business career as an employe in the Baldwin's Bank, a private institu-
tion in Penn Yan. He was there four years, then became associated
with the National Life Insurance Company of United States of America.
When the offuces of the company were removed from Philadelphia to
Chicago he went with them and became the cashier of the company in
its home office in Chicago. In 1887 he resigned after fourteen years
connection with the company and came to Los Angeles to assuine the
management of a real estate syndicate formed by his brother-in-law, J. F.
Crank, who will be remembered as the builder of the Los Angeles cable
roads and also the railroad now used by the Santa Fe as far east as
Monrovia. A few years after he was associated with the late John W.
Hinton in the real estate business. As Hinton & Whitaker they enjoyed
an important share in the real estate transactions of Los Angeles during
the years following the big boom and the early revival of business. After
Mr. Hinton's death, Mr. Whitaker dropped the real estate business and
continued a general insurance agency. The firm of M. T. Whitaker &
Company was incorporated in 1909, with M. T. Whitaker as president
and W. P. Battelle as secretary. Mr. Whitaker has been president of
the Sierra Madre Vintage Company for over twenty-five years. Their
winery and vineyards are at La Manda Park, where they have been grow-
ing grapes for wine making for nearly half a century.
Mr. Whitaker and his family reside at 815 West Eighteen street,
this city. He married Miss Carrie Brigden, of Penn Yan, New York,
and they have four daughters, Edith C, Pansy Louise, Belle Brigden,
wife of R. M. Galbreth, a Los Angeles lawyer, and Agnes Helen, wife
of Clyde Martin, of this city.
Mr. Whitaker is a republican in politics, and his own career is fully
in accord with the thorough American traditions of his family. He is
a member of the Jonathan Club and a trustee of the First Presbyterian
church of this city. Mrs. Whitaker is a member of the Ebell Club.
Rev. Joseph McManus was born in Ireland June 8, 1881, attended
the National schools to the age of fourteen, and then began training
for the priesthood in St. Patrick's College at Cavan, taking the classical
course for five years. He studied psychology and theology at the college
and seminary at Carlow, Ireland, and was ordained a priest in 1905.
Sent to America, he became assistant pastor of the Cathedral at Los
Angeles and in 1910 was made pastor of St. Mary's church. He entered
upon his present duties as pastor of the Church of the Holy Cross in 1918.
This parish was formed by the late Bishop Thomas J. Conaty. The
cornerstone of the present church edifice was laid June 23, 1912. The
first Mass of the Parish was said in December, 1906, in the small Chapel
now adjoining the church, by Rev. Thomas F. Fahey. Father Fahey
continued as pastor until 1916, and Rev. Francis D. Benson served as
administrator of the parish until 1918.
Father McManus is a member of the Knights of Columbus, the
Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Young Men's Institute and the Catholic
Order of Foresters.
Francis Eugene Bacon is one of the many men of mature business
achievements who have sought and found in Los Angeles an ideal home
for their retirement and years of comparative leisure. For a period
of about thirty years Mr. Bacon was one of the foremost merchants of
New York state, and the city of Syracuse regards him and his activities
as constituting one of its most notable factors of progress and achieve-
ment.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 107
Mr. Bacon was born at Fulton, New York, August 12, 1851, son
of Dr. Charles G. and Mary M. (Whitaker) Bacon. He is of English
ancestry, the Bacons having been in New England from colonial times.
His great-grandfather was wounded in the battle of Bunker Hill. In
the different generations many of the name have been leaders in the
medical profession, and it was the wish of his father that Francis E.
Bacon should follow that line, but he wisely decided that his talents and
inclinations were along lines of practical commerce. His father. Dr.
Charles G. Bacon, died in 1906, at the age of ninety-two, and at that
time was the oldest resident of Fulton. He was one of the founders of
the Falley Seminary at Fulton, had served as president of the Oswego
County Medical Society, and was probably the only physician in America
who had attended every semi-annual meeting of a medical society for
fifty years. So high a place did he occupy at Fulton that at the tirne of
his death ail business houses were closed.
When about fourteen years old Francis E. Bacon apprenticed him-
self to a merchant at Fulton. Eighteen months later, on the advice of
his father, he gave up that work and entered Falley Seminary, where
he completed the regular course. For a term he taught school, but after
that steadily gave all his time and study to business affairs. He resumed
his business career as clerk in the store of B. J. Dyer & Company at
Fulton. Within less than two years he had mastered all the details of
the business and was regarded as an expert in many departments. After
his services had been ultilized by another store at Fulton he returned to
the Dyer establishment as part owner and subsequently bought the store
where he had worked as, clerk a few years before, and under the name
Francis E. Bacon & Company made this one of the most flourishing
commercial houses of the town. He gave it all his time and attention
after the withdrawing from B. J. Dyer & Company. Through overwork
his health became impaired and he had to give up the management of
the store in 1894.
In the meantime, however, he had acquired many other interests in
Fulton. He was interested in the leather and lumber business, was also
president of the Fulton Machine Works and vice-president of the First
National Bank of that city. After a period of recuperation Mr. Bacon
established a department store at the city of Syracuse. With a former
partner, Mr. Chappell, he organized the firm Bacon, Chappell & Com-
pany. While the amount of capital at the outset was not large and the
firm was content with modest quarters, the business expanded and pros-
pered until eventually it became one of the largest and most complete
stores of its kind in western New York. Mr. Bacon continued his
financial interests in this store until the summer of 1912, when he sold
out. The purchaser was. by an interesting coincidence, a man named
Dyer, though he was in no way related to the first employer of Mr. Bacon.
In the meantime, on account of ill health and long continued activity,
Mr. Bacon had given up his personal supen'ision of business affairs in
Syracuse in 1910 and had come to Los Angeles, where he had visited
several years previously. Los Angeles has since been his home, though
he has sought here no outlet for his business energies.
Mr. Bacon became a resident of Syracuse in 1895. He forthwith
became a constructive factor in developing a city which when he went
there had only two paved streets. As president of the Syracuse Chamber
of Commerce he led in many movements for municipal improvement and
the increase of its commercial irhportance. During the five years he was
108 LOS ANGELES
president of the Chamber there was a continual campaign in the interest
of Syracuse, and that city became the home of many manufacturing in-
stitutions and today it is one of the big industrial centers of the east.
Mr. Bacon headed the delegation of local citizens who went to Washington
and secured the appropriation of money for a new Federal building.
Through his administration the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce became
one of the most effective institutions of its kind in the countrj'. For four
years he was its representative at the annual meetings of the National
Board of Trade and was a member of the Council of the latter organi-
zation. As a prominent merchant and citizen of Syracuse he entertained
at his home many distinguished visitors, including Presidents McKinley
and Roosevelt, and a number of men only less well known in the country's
history. Mr. Bacon brought about the organization of the Associated
Charities of Syracuse, was its president and was also president of the
.Syracuse Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He twice
declined tlie nomination for mayor of Syracuse. \Yhile a resident of
Fulton he was for fifteen years a member of its Board of Education
and for eight years president, and also served two years as president
of the Oswego County Sunday School Association. He was very active
as a trustee and builder of the First ]\Iethodist Episcopal church of
Fulton and also led the campaigns for building funds for the church at
Syracuse. Mr. Bacon is a member of the Citizens Oub of Syracuse, is
affiliated with the Masonic Order and belongs to the Los Angeles
Athletic Club, and to the Sons of the American Revolution.
In 1872, at Lyons, New York, he married Miss Gertrude P.
Andrews. On July 3, 1902, at Clifton Springs, New York, he married
Miss Cora May Hiscox. Mr. Bacon is now living in Berkely Square, Los
Angeles.
John Joseph Haggaety is the creator and author of one of the most
conspicuous successes in Los Angeles commercial life. Many ^vealthy
men have come to the city and increased their holdings by judicious
business operations, and others have become wealthy in the speculative
field. John J. Haggarty came equipped not so much with capital as with
a thorough knowledge of business, particularly the ladies' garment busi-
ness, and his subsequent success has been almost entirely due to the
rapid development of a great mercantile service.
A native of England, he was born in London May 25, 1864, son of
John and Elizabeth Ann (Atkinson) Haggarty. As a youth he was
given a good education in the public schools of London and a private
boarding school at Richmond in Yorkshire. Leaving school at the age
of nineteen, he sought .an opportunity to develop as a specialist in busi-
ness. In 1883 he apprenticed himself to William Bryer & Company, a
leading dry goods establishment in King William street, London. The
four years he spent there were exceptionally busy ones and had much
to do with the solid foundation of experience that was the basis of his
later career. Having completed his apprentice term he sailed for .Ameri-
ca in 1887, and going to St. Louis found employment with the Nigent
Brothers, dry goods merchants. He was with them about four years,
chiefly as a buyer in the garment department. It was in this work that
he had specialized, and largely as a buyer he has made his mark in the
commercial world. For another two years he was assistant buyer for
Scruggs, Vandervourt & Barney of St. Louis, and in 1893 went to Du-
luth, Minnesota, to become buyer for the Silverstcin & Bondy Company.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 109
He was a resident of that northern city nine years, and firmly estab-
lished himself as a factor in its business affairs.
Mr. Haggarty came to Los Angeles in 1902 and for three and a
half years was buyer and manager in the garment department of Jacoby
Brothers. He proved a valuable man to that house, building up a tre-
mendous business in his si)ecial line, and on resigning he took the money
he had saved to start on a small scale as an independent merchant.
While he had limited capital he had unlimited enterprise, faith in the
future, and it was not difficult for a man of his ability to get liberal back-
ing from the big wholesale and jobbing houses. His first store he named
the New York Cloak and Suit House, an incorporated company, of
which he was president and chief stockholder. Due to the personality
of the man at its head the business never occupied an obscure place in
the Los Angeles business district, and in a short time its sales aggre-
gated over a million dollars a year. The success of this store led Mr.
Haggarty to extend its activities and acquire the controlling interest of
anotlier large house known as the Paris Cloak and Suit House. This
has been equally successful with the original store.
There are many qualifications that enter into the equipment of a
big and successful merchant, and Mr. Haggarty undoubtedly possesses
most of them, and some of them without a rival. He has a wonderful
faculty for detail, and there are few items in the management of the
stores that do not come within his purview. For all that he remains a
great buyer and it has been his custom for a number of years to visit
the New York markets four times annually, besides trips abroad to the
centers of design and creation in Europe. Perhaps it need not be added
that Mr. Haggarty has exemplified among his business associates an
ideally optimistic temperament and a belief in the soundness and con-
tinued prosperity of his country. He is a man of wide observation and
generous knowledge of world politics and business affairs. Outside of
business he is devoted to home, and to the artistic surroundings which
his material success has enabled him to create. A number of years
ago he planned a magnificent home, which he constructed at a cost
of over a hundred thousand dollars and, representing the Norman
Gothic architecture of the 14th century, is one of the most beautiful pri-
vate homes in the West Adams section of Los Angeles. It is called
Castle York. The home is surrounded by spacious grounds, with sunken
gardens and a conservatory of rare plants, while on the inside the ar-
tistic tastes and inclinations of i\rr. Haggarty have full expression. A
devotee of music, he had installed in his home one of the most perfect
pipe organs found in a private residence anywhere in the country. With
his interests as a man of action and of domestic tastes so liberally satis-
fied, Mr. Haggarty is a member of few outside chilis, contenting himself
with membership in the Caniut Club and the Los Angeles Athletic
Club. Mr. Haggarty married August 24. 1901. at St. I'aul, Minnesota,
Miss P.ertha M. Schnider.
Philip Forve came to Los Angeles about twenty years ago, after a
long experience in business at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In Los
Angeles he has been engaged in the sale, installation and manufacture
of lighting fixtures, and is president of one of the largest companies
in that line in southern California.
Mr. Forve was born at W^ilkes-Barre, Penravlvania, March 31, 1856,
son of Jacob and Man- Forve. His schooling was ended at the age of
fourteen, and he then serv^ed an apprenticeship of three years in the plumb-
no LOS ANGELES
ing and heating business. On the conclusion of his apprenticeship he
joined his brother Peter, under the firm name of Peter Forve & Brother,
in the general plumbing and heating business and continued in successful
operation for upwards of a quarter of a century. During his residence
in Wilkes-Barre Mr. Forve served for four years as a member of the
School Board.
On coming to Los Angeles in 1900 he went into partnership with
H. W. Pettebone, under the name Forve, Pettebone & Company. Their
first place of business for handling general lighting fixtures was at 515
South Broadway, but in 1907 they erected a five-story building, especially
equipped for their business, at 512 South Broadway, known as the Forve-
Pettebone Building. They occupy the entire second floor as a salesroom,
the entire fifth floor for manufacturing and basement as a store room.
Since 1902 the business has been incorporated with Mr. Forve as presi-
dent. They employ about thirty people and manufacture a special line
of lighting fixtures.
Mr. Forve is also a director of the Commercial National Bank,
secretary and director of the Pure Oil Company and secretary and director
of the Piru Oil and Land Company. He is a member of the Knights of
Columbus, the California Club, in which he was a director in 1908-
1909, the Los Angeles Athletic Club and the Los Angeles Country Club.
During 1914-1915 he was a director of the Chamber of Commerce.
E. Collins Quinby is the man responsible for the famed Quinby's
California "Chocolate Shops." There are many thousands of people
dwelling in homes and cities remote and distant whose most delightful
reminiscences of Los Angeles center around the Chocolate Shops and
their products. Probably nowhere has the art of service and perfection
of quality been carried out more completely than in these shops, which
are distinctive of their kind, as Los Angeles is distinctive among all the
cities of the Globe.
About ten years ago Mr. Quinby and his associate established the
first shop, and from the beginning emphasized service and merchandise
quality rather than superficial pretentiousness. Beautiful and artistic
surroundings, furnishings and equipment have been introduced from time
to time, so that today the shops are as delightful to the eye as their mer-
chandise is to the palate. Competent judges and connoisseurs have pro-
nounced the Chocolate Shop chocolates unexcelled by any anywhere, and
it is indicative of the fine taste as well as the business enterprise of the
proprietors that they have utilized the unique and typically Calif ornian
setting for their product. Millions of boxes of Quinby's California Choco-
late Shops chocolates are shipped all over the country, and these boxes
win new friends and are at once recognized by their old friends through
the box of California redwood in which the confections are contained.
The cabinet work on these boxes gives them a special value, and thou-
sands of annual California visitors carry away no more distinctive
souvenir of Los Angeles than one of these boxes of native redwood.
Mr. Quinby established the Metropolitan Ice Cream Company in
partnership with his son Paul W. The next year they opened their
first chocolate shop, in a one-story building at 211 West 5th Street. It
was the small, obscure store from which their business has been developed
to one of national importance. In 1910 they opened a chocolate shop
at 20 East Colorado Street in Pasadena. The third shop was opened
in 1913 at 731 South Broadway, and in 1914 the fourth shop was estab-
lished at 217 West 6th Street. In 1915 the building in which their 5th
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA HI
street store was located was torn down to make way for the Citizens
National Bank Building. When that structure was completed a new
chocolate shop was reopened. In 1916 the firm sold the Metropolitan Ice
Cream Company to the Crescent Ice Cream Company.
The headquarters of the business are at 217 West 6th street, where
they occupy four stories and basement. The wholesale department of
the business was established in August, 1917, and in spite of the obvious
restrictions and handicaps caused by the war it has had a wonderful
growth and success. The manufacturing plant of Quinby's California
Chocolate Shop chocolates is located on 8th and Santee streets, Los
Angeles, in a modern and up-to-date building. The business is one that
employs four hundred and fifty people, and there are agents for Quinby's
Chocolate Shop chocolates in over 2,200 cities of the United States,
the Philippine Islands and the entire west coast of South America.
The business is incorporated with Mr. Quinby as president and Paul
W. Quinby vice-president and secretary.
Charles Seyler, Sr., was an old time Californian, coming to the
state soon after the Civil war, and for many years was identified in
official capacities with the Southern Pacific Railway, and later was a
well known banker in Los Angeles.
He was born at Dansville, New York, October 12, 1843. He was
schooled in his native state and in 1861, at the age of eighteen, enlisted
in Company D of the 13th New York Infantry. He saw two years of
active service. He lived in the east several years after the war, but
in 1870 came to California and was employed as agent at various points
around San Francisco for the Southern Pacific Company. Later he was
put in the freight office at San Francisco, and in 1875 was transferred
to Wilmington, now part of Los Angeles, as station agent. In 1880 he
returned to San Francisco as traveling auditor. The company sent
him back to Los Angeles in 1885 as district freight and passenger agent,
and he continued in that office until 1902, when he left the railroad
company to become cashier of the Farmers and Merchants Bank at Los
Angeles. He finally retired from business activities in 1913, and died
June 2, 1915. He was a member of the Masonic Order, of the Cali-
fornia Club, and was a republican. At Wilmington, California, in 1876,
he married Pauline Bauer.
Charles Seyler, Jr., the only child of his parents, was born at
Wilmington, January 14, 1878. The insurance circles in southern Cali-
fornia know him as one of the most successful insurance business get-
ters and as a man who is proficient in all branches of general insurance.
He was educated in grammar and high schools, graduating in 1896,
and in 1899, after receiving his degree from the University of Cali-
fornia, he returned to Los Angeles, and for a time was employed as
freight claim adjuster for the Southern Pacific Railway. He resigned
this office in 1902 to enter the general insurance work. Mr. Seyler's
offices are in the I. W. Hellman Building. He is a member of the
Phi Delta Theta college fraternity, the California Club, the Los Angeles
Country Club and Athletic Club and the Chamber of Commerce. August
7, 1916, at David City, Nebraska, he married Miss Marie Stoop.
Jean Etchemendy, a Los Angeles pioneer whose name is still held
in honored remembrance and whose descendants still live at Los An-
geles, was born at Hasparren, Basses-Pyrenees, France, November 11,
■ 1830. After spending his youth there and attending school he set out
112 LOS ANGELES
for South America. He left there in 1847, and located in San Fran-
cisco, going from there to the mines in the northern part of the state.
He arrived in Los Angeles in 1851, where he became interested in one
of the first bakeries. Later lie became identified with the sheep in-
dustry on the Rancho San Pedro near Wilmington, and was a man of
much business activity there until his death on ^larch 13, 1872.
Mr. Etchemendy after coming to Los Angeles married in 1865
juana Egurrola. She was born at Marquina, near Bilbao, Spain, Au-
gust 29, 1835. After the death of her first husband she married the
late Pierre Larronde, and she is now living in Los Angeles, at HI
North Hope street, where she resides with her three daughters, Made-
leine, Marianne and Caroline Etchemendy, and her son, John M. Lar-
ronde.
Pierre Larronde. In and around Los Angeles are several pieces
of property that have for many years, in fact since pioneer times, had the
title of ownership invested in the Larronde family, a name that repre-
sents some of the oldest Californians, and about the first settlers in this
state from France.
One of them was Pierre Larronde. He was born at St. Palais,
County of Basses, Pyrenees, France, October 9, 1826. He attended
school there and learned the carpenter's trade. In the early forties he
crossed the ocean to Buenos Aires, South America. He left there in
1847 and from San Francisco went to the mines in the northern part of
California. He arrived at Los .Vngeles when it was nothing but a
Spanish town in 1851. Here he bought an interest in a sheep ranch, and
for a number of years was a sheep rancher on the old Dominguez ranch,
known as the Rancho San Pedro. He conducted operations on :i large
scale, but in 1889 sold out and thenceforward looked after his interests
and investments in Los Angeles and surrounding districts. He had
much real estate, and some of it is still in the family. In 1879 he bought
the northwest corner at First and Spring streets from Frank Carpenter,
and that propertv is still owned by his heirs. Pierre Larronde died
May 24, 1896. '
In Los Angeles September 14. 1874. he married Mrs. Juana Etche-
mendy. To their marriage were born three children : Pierre Domingo,
a native of Los Angeles, and now connected with the Franco-American
Baking Company ; Antoinette, Mrs. James J. Watson, of Los Angeles :
and John M.. connected with the Title Insurance Company of Los An-
geles.
Philip A. Stakton, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, February 4,
1868, son of Lewis and Rosalie Stanton, is a southern California pioneer
in two important respects. Educated in the public schools of Cleveland,
he came to Los Angeles in 1887. That makes him a pioneer in point
of residence.
A much more noteworthy distinction has been his pioneer work in
the development of Southern California. He early entered the real
estate business and for thirty years has been promoting the growth of
Los Angeles and making towns grow where none grew before. He
subdivided and sold many tracts in Los Angeles city and Orange county,
including several thousand acres where the city of Stanton now stands,
and is still owner of several hundred acres in the latter locality.
This work has brought him into close association with some of the
liiggest business men and financiers of southern California, including
AAXV\AyuJ cijymcri 1 CM/
<f>^i^e.<i^r^ ^c^yr7^7>^^^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 113
i. W. Hellman, for whom he acted as agent ten years, the Stearns
Rancho Company, the late R. J. Northam, and Mr. H. E. Huntington.
Three flourishing southern CaHfornia cities — Seal Beach, Hunting-
ton Beach and Stanton — owe their founding and to a large extent their
development to Philip A. Stanton. All these are in Orange county,
"the little county of big crops." Mr. Stanton early saw their possi-
bilities and the results have well vindicated his shrewdness and sound
judgment. His chief interests at present are centered in Seal Beach, the
favorite seaside resort of the rich "back country" of Orange county, and
in Stanton, the center of a prosperous ranching and truck farming dis-
trict.
Mr. Stanton is president of the Bayside Land Company of Seal
Beach; president of the Benedict Water Company; president of the
Stanton City Improvement Company; president of the South Coast Im-
provement Association, an organization which has done much to ad-
vance the interests and development of the South Coast from Seal
Beach to Balboa and Capistrano; and is a director of the California
Savings and Commercial Bank.
His supreme faith in the resources and possibilities of the South
Coast in general and in Orange county in particular has been justified
by the remarkable growth of that section and the outlook for its future.
In this brief sketch Mr. Stanton's important public and political
service must not be overlooked. For many years he had a deep interest
in politics and was a leader in the regular republican party of the state,
and one of its mainstays in southern California. He served as a member
of the State Assembly from 1902 to 1910. In 1905 he was chairman
of the Ways and Means Committee. In 1909, while speaker of the
Assembly, he bridged over a critical situation and rendered the nation
a distinctive service by suppressing anti-Japanese legislation at the
personal request of Theodore Roosevelt, then president. Some of the
most important state laws bear Mr. Stanton's name. He was also largely
responsible for legislation abolishing race track gambling and for the
enactment of the direct primary law. He was a candidate for the re-
publican gubernatorial nomination in 1910 and served as a republican
national committeeman from California from 1912 to 1916.
Mr. Stanton is a Mason, a member of the Los Angeles Athletic,
Jonathan and Union League Clubs of Los Angeles, the Union League
Club of San Francisco, and of the Orange County Country Club, Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Realty Board of Los Angeles.
Judge Sidney N. Reeve, a judge of the Superior Court of Los
Angeles, came to southern California nearly twenty years ago, leaving
some prominent professional associations in Chicago, and has been an
active member of the Los Angeles bar and a public ofificial for over ten
years.
He was born at Sherbrooke, Province of Quebec, Canada, April 11,
1877. Four years later, in 1881, his parents, George B. and Alice (Jones)
Reeve, moved to Chicago, where he attended public scl»ol to the age
of fourteen. He gained his firs.t knowledge 'f the law in the law office
of Samuel B. Foster, and in September, ] , , graduated LL.B. from the
Law Department of Lake Forest University. He ^vas then about nine-
teen and a half years old, and as he could not yet qualify for practice,
he spent the time pursuing a post-graduate course in McGill University
at Montreal. Returning to Chicago in 1899, he was admitted to the
bar by the Supreme Court of Illinois, and first engaged in practice with
114 LOS ANGELES
Charles Deneen, who was then state's attorney and afterward governor
of IlHnois. Judge Reeve was making promising advancement though
under the handicap of ill health, and finally for the sake of his health
he left Chicago and in 1901 came to Los Angeles. For several years
he made no attempt to practice and found employment on his father's
ranch at LaMirado. In 1907 he was formally admitted to the bar in
California. In 1906 he accepted the place of clerk in the township court
of Los Angeles county. In 1908 he became deputy city attorney and
assistant prosecuting attorney and in 1910 was elected and served until
January, 1915, as justice of the peace of Los Angeles township.
Since January, 1915, Judge Reeve has been a member of the Su-
perior Court and has presided over Department 8, usually described as
the juvenile and psychopathic department. In this branch of the judi-
ciary he handles about ten thousand cases every year, practically all of
them involving children, insane and feeble minded, or matters affecting
child welfare and the unfortunate class generally.
Judge Reeve is a Mason, a Woodman of the World, and is a mem-
ber of the University Club, Brentwood Country Club, the Episcopal
church and in politics is a republican. November 5, 1908, he married
Miss Mary Widney, daughter of W. W. Widney, a Los Angeles pioneer.
They have two children: Sidney N., Jr., born in 1912, now attending
public school, and Mary Virginia, born in 1917.
Drew Pruitt is a lawyer of over a third of a century's experience,
attained his early successes and distinctions in Texas, and since 1906
has been one of the strong and able lawyers of Los Angeles.
He was born at Selma in Drew county, Arkansas, January 1, 1860,
a son of Jacob M. Pruitt. His father, who was bom at Moulton, Ala-
bama, in 1819, was a southern planter, spent his early life in Alabama,
moved in 1843 to Hernando, De Soto county, Mississippi, where he had
a plantation operated by slave labor, and in 1850 went to Selma, Drew
county, Arkansas, and owned several plantations in that locality. After
the war, in 1869, he sold out his Arkansas properties and moved to what
was then the frontier of northern Texas, engaging in ranching and
cattle raising in Coryell county. He lived there until his death in 1894.
He married at Moulton, Alabama, Nancy P. Johnson.
Drew Pruitt was one of twelve children. He acquired his early
education in the district schools of Coryell county, Texas, until fifteen,
attended a preparatory school at Waco for two years, and took his uni-
versity course in Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee. He
graduated with the degree B. P. in 1881. He studied law in the office of
Herring, Kelly and Williams at Waco one year, and after his admission
to the Texas bar began practice at Fort Worth. He was one of the
leading lawyers of north Texas for many years, and on several occa-
sions served by appointment as judge of the District Court.
Judge Pruitt came to Los Angeles in 1906. Here also he has been
appointed judge in special cases, and makes a specialty of corporation
and probate law. He is a member of the Los Angeles and American
Bar Associations, belongs to the Sons of the American Revolution, is
affiliated with Moneta Lodge, F. and A. M., South Gate Chapter, R.
A. M., Los Angeles Commandery, Knights Templar, and Al Malikah
Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is a Democrat and a member of the
Jonathan Club.
At Waco, Texas, May 1, 1887, Mr. Pruitt married Wilhelmina
Franklin. Their son. Drew, Jr., born at Fort Worth in April, 1888,
^ZW*V?2/..<--C^.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA US
was educated in the University of Texas and Stanford Llniversity, and
early in the World war entered the officers' training camp at American
Lake. He joined the famous Yankee Division 26 and was assigned to
duty in Field Hospital Unit No. 102 in France, spent ten months with the
Expeditionary Forces, and in the spring of 1919 was recovering from his
wounds sustained in the battle of .Argonne in the hospital at San Diego.
California.
Charles L. Bundv, whose offices are in the Investment Building at
Los Angeles, is widely known for his operations in the real estate field,
and has been especially identified with development) work, banking
and other enterprises at Santa Monica.
He has practically lived all his life in and around Santa Monica,
though he was born at Ames, Iowa, November 16, 1875. His father,
Nathan Bundy, who was bona at Chesterhill, Ohio, November 16, 1846,
after getting his education moved to y\mes Iowa, and in 1876 came to
Santa Monica, California, where he became extensively interested in
real estate and did a great deal of development in and around that city
and also in Los Angeles. He died in November, 1913. He and his
wife had six children, all of whom are still living but one.
Charles L. Bundy was educated in the grammar and high schools
of Santa Monica, and at the age of eighteen entered the Bank of Santa
Monica as bookeeper. Eventually he was promoted to the office of
cashier, and after ten years of continuous service resigned to establish
an office in Los Angeles and engage in the real estate business. Mr.
Bundy has seldom if ever handled any property except his own, and
his interests are sufficiently large to require all his time. He is vice-
president and director of the Santa Monica Land and Water Company
and vice-president and director of the Santa Monica Land Company.
He is a member of the California Oub, Brentwood Country Club and a
republican in politics.
May 20, 1897, he married Hallie Loomis. They have two very
promising young sons. Douglas, who was born in 1898, is a graduate
of the Hollywood High School, also attended the famous preparatory
school at Ojai known as the Thatcher School, spent one year in the
Officers Training School for the Field Artillery at Yale University, and
is now a student in Leland Stanford University. Robert Bundy, born
in 1901, had four years in the Thatcher School, is a graduate of the Los
Angeles High School and is now at Leland Stanford University.
Rev. Patrick Daly, assistant pastor of St. John's Catholic church
at Hyde Park, has been identified with this young and growing parish
since he came a newly ordained priest from his native Ireland.
Father Daly was born in County Kerry, Ireland, August
21, 1888, son of Mortimer and Mary (Relihan) Daly. His father was
born in County Kerry in 1858, and spent his active career as a farmer.
He was the father of seven children. Two of his brothers, uncles of
Rev. Patrick Daly, were also priests, Father John Daly, pastor of St.
Brendan's Church at Elkins. West Virginia, and Father Patrick Daly,
who recently died and was pastor of St. Joseph's Church at Longsight.
Manchester, England.
Father Daly attended the National schools of County Kerry to the
age of fourteen. He was then in St. Michael's College at Listowel
a year, then in St. Brendan's Seminary at Killamey, from which he
graduated after a three year's course. He studied philosophy and
theology in St. Kieran's College in Kilkenny and was ordained there
116 LOS ANGELES
June 13, 1915. Father Patrick Daly also has a brother, Mortimer, who
will receive ordination as a priest in June, 1919.
Father Patrick Daly immediately set out for the United States and
since arriving has been assistant pastor of St. John's parish at Hyde
Park. Tlie church was established in 1908, and the church home v>'as
dedicated in January, 1910, by the late Bishop Conaty. Father Daly
was at "first assistant to Father Jerry Burke, pastor of St. John's, and
is now assistant to Father Leo G. Garsse. Father Daly is a member
of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Norman R. Martin is a widely known California man, a veteran of
the railroad service, spending rnany years with the Southern Pacific
Company, but is now giving his time to public work as superintendent
of Charities of Los Angeles County, and superintendent of the County
Hospital.
Mr. Martin was born at Brushton, Franklin county, New York,
September 17, 1872, but has been a resident of Los Angeles since he
was nine years of age. His parents were Russell Clinton and Sarah A.
(Gibson) Martin. His father, who was bom at Burlington, Vermont,
November 30, 1848, was educated there and at the age of fourteen man-
aged to get into the army as a volunteer in the First Vermont Cavalry,
and saw a year and a half of active service in putting down the rebel-
lion. Following the war he located at Brushton, New York, and was
in the drug business there until 1881. In that year he brought his family
west to Los Angeles, and entered the employ of the Southern Pacific
Railway as locomotive engineer. He was on the road at the throttle
over thirty-four years, finally retiring in 1914. He married at Moira,
Franklin county, New York, September 22. 1868, Miss Sarah A. Gibson.
Of their three children two are living.
Norman R. Martin attended school in New York, but most of his
education was acquired after his parents came to Los Angeles in No-
vember, 1881. For a time. he was a pupil in the old Bath Street School,
and he was one of the three white children among sixty students, the
rest being Mexicans. In June, 1890, he graduated from the Los Angeles
High School, then located in the old Spring Street School, where Mer-
cantile Place is now a business center. For about a year thereafter Mr.
Martin studied and played instrumental music.
His real business career began in December, 1891, as messenger at
the freight house of the Southern Pacific Railway in Los Angeles, under
Charles Seyler, who later became cashier of the Farmers' and Mer-
chants' Bank. In July, 1892. Mr. Martin became clerk in the uptown
freight office at Second and Spring streets, was sent in December. 1894.
to San Diego as ticket clerk : in June, 1895, returned to Los Angeles as
Pullman and ticket clerk in the'Los Angeles office; in 1896 was pro-
moted to cashier and accountant; August. 1899, was made traveling
passenger and advertising agent; in 1902 became city ticket agent at
Los Angeles, and in 1904, was given the responsibilities of district pas-
senger agent over the territory of southern California, north to Santa
Barbara and Bakersfield. east to the Colorado River, and south including
the Imperial Valley. All these promotions were made on merit and the
value of his service to the company ; in 1910 he was assigned to an in-
teresting task, requiring several months, during which he explored the
west coast of Old Mexico as far south as Tepic, a thousand miles below
the American border. These investigations were for the purpose of
making exhaustive colonization reports for Colonel Epes Randolph,
i
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 117
president of the Southern Pacific Railway of Mexico, to determine
agricultural possibilities and a policy of colonization.
Realizing the wonderful possibilities in old Mexico, Mr. Martin re-
signed from the Southern Pacific Company in May, 1911, and bought
an eleven thousand acre ranch in Sinaloa. He gave his time to the per-
sonal supervision of this immense tract until the outbreak and continu-
ance of revolutionar}' trouble put a quietus to all ordered activities of
an agricultural nature in the southern republic. In March, 1914, Mr.
Martin, returning to Los Angeles, was appointed general agent for the
Lake Tahoe Transportation Company. He was also secretary of the
1915 General Committee, succeeding Congressman Henry Z. Osborne,
and under the chairmanship of Motly H. Flint, Mr. Martin resigned
these dities in P'ebruary, 1915, to become Superintendent of Charities
of Los Angeles county, with general supervision over the County Hos-
pital, Farm and Cemetery and the outdoor relief for city and county.
In June, 1917, additional duties were imposed upon him as superin-
tendent of the County Hospital.
Mr. Martin is a director of the Southern California Building and
Loan Association, is a member of the Immigration Committee of the
Chamber of Commerce, is an Elk, a Royal Arch Mason, a Republican,
a member of the Episcopal church, and of the Southern California Auto-
mobile Club. In Los Angeles, at St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral June 1, 1898,
he married Miss Florence Hayden McLellan. They have one daughter,
Marjorie Eleanor, a student in the Los Angeles public schools.
Arthur Letts. The world is becoming accustomed to the marvel-
ous results accomplished by organized efficiency, otherwise it would be
difficult to explain how one of the Los Angeles greatest institutions, the
Broadway Department Store, could have been founded twenty odd years
ago by a man with only five hundred dollars in capital. Little notice was
taken of the arrival of Arthur Letts in the business community of Los
Angeles in 1895. But for ten years or more his store, and his won-
derful home and gardens at Hollywood, has attracted millions of patrons
and visitors every year. Mr. Letts represents an old and substantial
English family of the upper middle class. He was born at Holmby
Lodge in Northamptonshire, June 17, 1862, son of Richard and Caroline
(Coleman) Letts. Both his father and grandfather were named Rich-
ard, and that name was regularly bestowed upon the oldest son of the
family for nine generations. Four hundreds, years ago a Richard
Letts owned the farm where Arthur Letts was born.
Up to 1S74, at the age of twelve, Arthur Letts attended a private
school for boys near his old home, conducted by Rev. Mr. Hedges. From
1874 to 1877 he attended the Creaton grammar school, and also had the
instruction of a private coach named Mr. Meredith. His early life was
characterized by great devotion to his studies. He was always very fond
of his older brothers. He stood at the head of liis class in school, but he
chose otherwise than a studious or professional career. At the age of
sixteen he was articled for three yenrs to a good man, proprietor of a
dry goods store in a small, thriving English town. The three years he
spent there gave him a good foundation for a business career. The
fourth year he was engaged by the same house on a salary. About that
time he and a younger brother became enthusiastic over the opportuni-
ties of the New World. When they were snfely embarked on a steamer
at Liverpool they sent word to their parents and thus avoided the com-"
plications of leaving home without express permission. For several
118 LOS ANGELES
years Arthur Letts was employed in Walker's department store at To-
ronto, then the largest mercantile estabHshment of Canada. During that
service he received permission to volunteer in the Queen's Own, and
made a creditable record while with the troops engaged in putting down
the Riel Rebellion in the northwest. For this service he was awarded a
silver medal and clasp and also a grant of land by the Canadian gov-
ernment.
In the early '90's Mr. Letts went west to Seattle. Soon after his
arrival the mercantile house that had employed him was burned in a
general fire that devastated the business section of the city. The ashes
were hardiy cool when he put up a tent and installed a stock of goods
on his own account. Later he moved his stock to a building, and con-
tinued a Seattle merchant for several years.
His next move brought him to Los Angeles in February, 1896. At
that time he had only live hundred dollars in capital. Perhaps the
most significant thing about Mr. Letts' early activities at Los Angeles
was his foresightedness and his choice of a business location. At that
time the corner at Fourth and Broadway was considered out in the
country, being several blocks from a real business district. A firm
at Fourth and Broadway, J. A. Williams & Company, had recently
become bankrupt, its stock inventorying at a little more than eight
thousand dollars. Mr. Letts apparently was the only man who con-
sidered this a real opportunity for investment. With the aid of an
influential friend he secured a loan of five thousand dollars from the
Los Angeles National Bank, and the stock was finally purchased from
the Board of Trade. Thus on February 24, 1896, the Broadway De-
partment Store of Arthur Letts was first opened to the public. His
stock was damaged a week later by an adjacent fire, but that handicap
was soon overcome and his business grew by leaps and bounds. Time
and again it has been necessary to enlarge his quarters. In 1899 the
Broadway Department Store occupied the entire ground floor of the
Pirtle & Hallet Building. In 1901 the adjoining Hellman Building was
bought, and in 1905 the upper floors of the Pirtle and Hallet Building
were acquired. In the next year the Slauson Building was occupied.
Still later a magnificent new structure was erected, and today there is
no larger and better known department store in southern California
than the Broadway Department Store.
Some of the qualities of character that have impelled Arthur Letts
to his present business position are indicated in the foregoing brief de-
scription. But it is significant that Mr. Letts himself has always re-
garded the Broadway Department Store as an institution and an or-
ganization rather than a one-man business. He seemed to exemplify
a policy laid down by another eminent financier a number of years ago
of never doing anything which someone else could do. He has been
content to Ijlaze the trail, show the way, and give his complete con-
fidence and co-operation to his associates, whether those associates are
tlepartment managers or the humblest employes.
In recent years the public generally has been made familiar with a
so-called new idea in education, the "Continuation School" and voca- ■
tional training. It is noteworthy that Mr. Letts introduced ;i plan of
"Continuation School" seventeen years ago. In his store he arranged
for and established instruction given free to his younger employes, and
since then all the junior members of the store's working force under
eighteen years have the opportunity of getting a good education while
earning their living. This school has been studied and commented upon
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 119
by many educators, and frequently the results attained by the Broad-
way Department Store pupils have been equal to those attained where
pupils have attended the regular public schools without the interruption
of a daily vocation. Another important institution of the store was the
organization in 1904 of a mutual benefit association that provides relief
to members who are kept from their duties through illness.
Mr. Letts was one of the most liberal givers to the Los Angeles
Y. M. C. A., for nine years was president of the local association, and
in that time the association acquired the largest membership of any
individual body of the association in the world. In 1909 Mr. Letts was
a delegate to the World's Convention of the Young Men's Christian
Association.
Mr. Letts was at one time vice-president of the California Savings
Bank and a director of the Broadway Bank and Trust Company, but his
growing interests as a business man caused him eventually to retire
from all outside responsibilities. He is a republican but has never con-
sented to serve in more than one political position, as trustee of the
State Normal School.
Mr. Letts is a member of the Hollywood Lodge, A. F. and A. M.,
is a Knight Templar, and a member of the California Club of Los
Angeles, the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, the Los Angeles Cham-
ber of Commerce, Realty Board, Los Angeles Country- Club, Athletic
Club, Midwick Country Club, Municipal League, City Club, Hollywood
Board of Trade. Federation Club and the Automobile Club. He is also
vice-president of the Boy Scouts of America, and president of the local
Boy Scouts.
His hobby is horticulture. His estate at Hollywood covers a hun-
dred acres of ground and contains besides his beautiful residence, known
as Holmby House, an unrivaled collection of trees, plants and shrubs
gathered from all parts of the world. To one who has known the beau-
tiful residences and estates of other lands, there is an especial charm
about the approach and entrance to the home of Arthur Letts — Holmby
House. No lodge beside locked gates here, with liveried servants keep-
ing guard, but on the contrary as one approaches on Kenmore avenue
he is impressed with the open welcome of the unguarded gateways and
drives. The formal garden, with its warmth of color shown in the
many symmetrical designs of arrangements of brilliant-hued foliage
plants, seem to speak of a warm hearted host awaiting one in the mansion
on the hill.
The graceful branches of the many deodars seem to beckon to one
to come closer and yet closer, while from row upon row of carefully
chosen specimen trees that plant the garden comes a burst of melody
from a thousand tiny throats, the sweet songsters giving welcome as they
wing their way from tree top to tree top. The beautiful statuary
grouped on the terraces, the playing fountain, the restful Italian marble
seats, all lend their aid to the development of this idea, that here is to
be found a largesse, a bounteous generosity and hospitality, in a home
the master of which is a citizen of the world.
There are literally miles and miles of beautiful winding roads and
walks and picturesque pathways in the grounds about Holmby House,
and in some of these one might linger for hours, resting now and then
beneath some stately tree, or dropping down to enjoy at leisure some
fine vista of distant ocean or purple tipped mountains.
Architectural efifect has not been neglected either, and here and
there are dignified pergolas overhung with glorious tropical vines, and
120 LOS ANGELES
with tiled or gravel walks beneath their shelter, leading perhaps to a
rippling fountain or to the edge of a terrace where one may sit cosily
at afternoon tea, or perhaps in the summer evening linger to look out
over the moonlit valley, or watch a few miles away the twinkling lights
of the busy city of Los Angeles.
The trellised walks about the great glass and lath conservatory are
especially beautiful, for they shelter wondrous waxen begonias and rare
ferns, and some of the lattices are woven from the natural branches of
trees still covered with bark in rustic fashion, some of these screening
cosy rustic seats and lending much to the beauties of the plant houses,
which overflow with rare plant life gathered from all parts of the world.
In the palm plantation there is an unusually fine grouping on a gently
sloping side hill, with a ground covering of French cannas, dwarf palms,
grasses and other plants that add to the luxuriant tropical effect of the
arrangement which is at once unique and beautiful. The poets of the
world have written freely and fully of the music of the tree tops, and
especially have the pines had their soft minor songs translated for us
into rythmical words, but as yet no musical interpreter has been found
for the wonderful songs of the palm tree. To sensitive ears there is a
harp-like quality to the tones as if the fingers lingered on the silken
strings, and the notes of melody die away like the whispers of baby
voices.
Each of the palms has its own song, but that of the graceful cocos
plumosa has a peculiarly musical tone, and one might sit for hours in
the great pergola on the terrace listening to the music that floats up-
ward from the waving branches.
Mr. Letts' collection of cacti and succulents is considered to be the
finest private collection in the world. The government has created his
cactus garden a United States sub-station. It was his interests and
attainments as a horticulturist that caused his selection to represent
America on the Advisory Board of the committee having in charge
the International Horticultural Exhibit at London in 1912. Mr. Letts
has expended a large amount of money in developing his gardens and
grounds, but has always declined to estimate the cost of this work, feel-
ing that in his own words: "this garden is the one thing in my life that
is going to measure up to my ideal now and for a hundred years to
come, and I do not propose to place a money value on it." Among the
durable satisfactions of life there is perhaps none greater than that of
an intimate kinship and love of nature, flowers and all growing things,
and in the exquisite expression of that taste which wealth and long
study have afforded Mr. Letts he is surely one of the most enviable
men in southern California. He is also a lover of art of other kinds,
and his Hollywood home shelters a number of precious marbles and
other rare treasures.
Mr. J^etts has had an- ideal home life. On August 25, 1886, at
Toronto, Canada, he married Miss Florence Philp, daughter of a Method-
ist Episcopal minister. They are the parents of three children : Florence
Edna, born September 24, 1887, now Mrs. Malcolm McNaghten ; Gladys,
born September 9, 1889, Mrs. Harold Janss, and Arthur Letts Jr., born
April 21, 1891.
George H. Peck for many years was prominent as a banker at San
Pedro and is active head of two companies which have handled more
iand in and around San Pedro, including the great harbor improve-
ments, than any other organization.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 121
The Pecks are original Californians, dating from the days of
forty-nine. George H. Peck is a son of George H. Peck, Sr., who was
born at BurHngton, Vermont, in October, 1822. He was well educated,
studied law and practiced in the east until 1849, when he came to Cali-
fornia by way of the Isthmus of Panama. For a time he mined at Dutch
Flat, later was principal of schools at San Francisco, and in 1868 moved
to El Monte, and was engaged in the business of raising castor oil
beans until 1876. He then retired and moved to Pasadena, where he
lived quietly until his death in 1906. He was a Republican and a mem-
ber of the Episcopal church. At San Francisco he married Mary Chater.
Their four children are : John H. F., of Long Beach ; George H., Mrs.
Kate W. Gibbs, of Pasadena; and Mrs. Mary C. Jardine, of Los
Angeles.
George H. Peck, Jr., was born in San Francisco October 15, 1856.
He attended public school in that city until 1868, and after his parents
moved to El Monte continued his education in the public schools of San
Gabriel. His first serious employment was with the Southern Pacific
Railroad Company, beginning in a minor capacity and rising to the
position of conductor. After nine years he resigned from the operat-
ing department and engaged in the real estate business in San Pedro.
He was from the first an active spirit in all of San Pedro's afifairs. He
established a general commercial bank, and also the Citizens Savings
Bank, and was president of these two institutions for twenty-five years.
Mr. Peck is still president of G. H. Peck & Company, which handles
San Pedro harbor property, and is president of the San Pedro Land
Company, through which a great bulk of the lands in and around San
Pedro have been bought and sold. Mr. Peck is affiliated with the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Knights of Pythias.
In politics he is independent.
At Los Angeles in February, 1884, he married Olive Betz, now
deceased. There are four children, two sons and two daughters, Wil-
liam, Leland, Rena, Mrs. Herbert Culler of Los Angeles, and Alma.
The son William, born in Los Angeles, was educated in the public
schools, and for a number of years has been associated with his father
in business and is now vice president of the San Pedro Land Company.
George W. Walker is on the board of a number of Los Angeles'
leading financial and business institutions, is a member of its leading-
clubs, and all his associations are those of a most substantial, prosperous
and influential business man and citizen. Everyone likes to know how
such a man got his start. Some of the older acquaintances and friends
of Mr. Walker can answer this query by recalling the period, now twenty-
eight years in the past, when he was winning friends and building up
business in his cigar and tobacco store on the corner of First and Main
streets.
The width of a continent separates him from his birthplace. George
W. Walker was born at Albany, New York, October 7, 1861, son of
Robert and Elizabeth (Moore) Walker. His early boyhood was spent
in the city of Washington, where he attended the grammar and high
schools, graduating in 1878, at the age of seventeen. He at once sought
change and adventure in the life of the southwest. At Tombstone, Ari-
zona, he became identified with the cigar and tobacco business, and re-
mained liiere until coming to Los Angeles, in 1S91, then establishing
the store above mentioned. He developed his business rapidly, both'
wholesale and retail. In 1906 he removed the wholesale cigar and
122 LOS ANGELES
tobacco business to 109-111 North Main street, and in 1912 the whole-
sale business was moved to 306-308 South Los Angeles street. When he
sold the business in 1912 he had built it up until in volume it was the
largest of its kind in Southern California.
Mr. Walker in 1911 was made president of the Citizens Trust and
Savings Bank. He continued to act in that capacity until 1912, when,
resigning, he in company with his family, made a trip around the world,
during which they visited all the principal countries and cities abroad.
On returning to Los Angeles in 1913 he was soon again in the active
tide of business affairs, serving as vice-president and director of the
Citizens Trust and Savings Bank and as director of the Citizens National
Bank and a member of its Executive Committee.
Mr. Walker is president of the Olig Crude Oil Company and the
Ulig Land Company, president of the Monroe Oil Company and the
West Side Oil Company, is vice-president of the U. S. Realty Company
and an officer and director in many other corporations. He owns the
Walker Theatre Building and much other valuable real estate along
Broadway, Grand avenue and Seventh street.
He is a member of the Jonathan Club, Athletic Club, Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce, Municipal League and other civic and social
organizations, and in politics votes as a republican. . At Tombstone, Ari-
zona, in 1883, he married Miss Margaret S. Holmes, of Nevada City,
California, fhey have one daughter, Ethelwyn Gertrude.
Frederick Palmer, president of the Palmer Photoplay Corporation,
was born in Belmont, New York, on Friday the thirteenth of May. 1881,
and his success has been a living exemplification of the fallacy of the
superstition founded upon this calendar combination.
Educated in the schools of Rochester and New York Cily, Mr.
Palmer took up newspaper work, starting as a cub reporter on the Roches-
ter Post Express and making rapid progress under the kindly guidance of
John Northern Hilliard, now famous as a novelist and short stors- writer.
Having been an adept at sleight-of-hand since boyhood, Mr. Palmer
became acquainted with Alexander Herrmann, the famous magician, and
after a course of training under this great master of digital dexterity,
entered vaudeville under the title of "Palmer, The Man of Mystery" and
toured this and other countries successfully for a number of years.
In an emergency arising from the sudden illness of a member of a
dramatic company, Mr. Palmer junrped in and played the part and met
with such success that he spent several years in the legitimate drama
and musical comedy.
Seeing great story possibility in the various branches of tlie show
business, Mr. Palmer spent several seasons with circuses, carnivals and
fair ground shows, also making a trip down the Mississippi in a river
show boat. During this time he contributed many stories and special
articles to magazines and newspai)ers and wrote several volumes of
verse.
Ten years ago, adopting Los Angeles as a permanent home, Mr,
Palmer turned his attention to a study of motion pictures. During four
years of this time he published the largest theatrical magazine of the
west, "The Rounder." After selling this publication he decided to devote
his entire time to screen production. After free-lancing" for a time he
became a staff writer with the old Keystone Company, rising to the
position of assistant managing editor under Mack Sennett and Hampton
Del Kuth. Later he became managing editor of Vogue Films, resignini;
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 123
that iH)sition to become special writer for Universal. During nine months
Mr. I'almer wrote fifty-two stories which were produced and exhibited.
.Subsequently lie was a special writer for Triangle and the William l<"o.x
Corporation.
Realizing that producers were facing a serious scarcity of screen
stories, Mr. Palmer together with Roy L. Manker organized the Palmer
I'hutoplay Corporation, which was incorporated under the direction of
the following officers: Frederick Palmer, president; Harry E. Teter,
vice-president: Sam i{. Warmbath, secretary and treasurer; and Roy L.
Manker, business manager. Starting with three offices and five employes
the Palmer Photoplay Corporation has grown to an organization coiii-
l)rising thirty offices and nearly two score employes and serving as a
national clearing house for photoplay scenarios.
The Palmer plan of scenario writing has been widely advertised and
has heljjed many aspiring writers to success, as creators of photoplay
.-lorn-
The Manuscript Sales Department is a constant source of supply
for screen material anil some of the largest productions of the past year
have passed through this department from author to producer.
Frederick Palmer is one of the men of genius — though he disclaims
any of it — who have made l.os .\ngeles the world's greatest center in
tlie i)rt)duction of ])hoto])lays. It is only for the purpose of permanent
record, and not to furnish information that would be superflous. that
this brief article is incorjioratcd here.
D.\NiEL Freeman. j\ number of the experiences of the late Daniel
Freeman, especially during his early residence in Los Angeles county,
are pertinent and indispensable facts in the understanding of the real
history of this section. Daniel Freeman was a man of interesting per-
sonality, and his achievements rank him as one of the foremost of the
pioneers of Los Angeles.
He was born in .Xorfolk count}, I )ntario, June 30. 1837, of English
and Scotch-Irish ancestry. In the paternal line his first American an-
cestor, l-'dward Freeman, located at Woodbridge, Xew Jersey, as early
as 1658. Many t)f the l-Veemans in subsecjuent generations were jiromi-
nent in public and business aft'airs. Daniel Freeman's grandfather was
also named Daniel and was a Methodist preacher and missionary who
went in the interests of the church from Xew Jersey to Canada, and
devoted a number of years to the extension of the church and the jiropa-
gation of Christianity. It is said that he preached the first Protestant
sermon in the city of Detroit. He organized many .congregations
through the province of Ontario and in the state of Michigan. He had
a farm in Ontario, and there his son, father of Daniel Freeman,, was
born and gave his entire life to agriculture. He married a daughter of
Scotch-Irish immigrants. Daniel Freeman was reared on a farm and
his early life was remote from those special advantages that are part of
a liberal education. However, he had that ambition for a higher edu-
cation which made its attainment oidy a matter of minor difficultv. He
graduated from a private academy and studied law in Osgoode Hall at
the University of Ontario. He graduated and was admitted to the bar
in 1865. He .soon attained much prominence in his profession at .Sim-
coe. Ontario, and he also was interested in a shipyard on Lake Erie.
P>ut for one thing he might have remained in Canada and achieved pro-
fessional eminence and great business success. He had married in 1S66
.•i Mis'i Christie, whose health early 1)ecame a matter of concern to Afr.
124 LOS ANGELES
Freeman. They spent several winters together traveling in the south,
where the milder climate was of benefit to her, and in February, 1873,
while on a train Mr. Fre'eman was ofifered by the newsboy a book entitled
"Nordhoff's California." He bought a copy, began a casual examina-
tion, and eventually was so absorbed in all the glowing descriptions
that he hastily convinced himself that it was his duty to visit California,
and accordingly the very next day arrangements had been made and
accommodations secured for the long railway journey to the Pacific
coast.
Mr. Freeman first went to San Francisco, and from that city spent
nine months in investigating all sections of the state with a view to the
purchase of property and permanent residence and business connections.
In the course of his investigations he visited the Centinela Rancho,
which with the Sansal Redondo comprised something like twenty-six
thousand acres of land, then devoted to grazing purposes by the owner,
Sir Robert Burnett, who was then living on the rancho, but later re-
turned to Scotland. In September, 1873, Mr. Freeman leased the rancho
for five years with the privilege of buying it within that time at six dol-
lars an acre. Mr. Freeman also bought from the immense herds owned
by Sir Robert Burnett ten thousand sheep. The rancho was supposedly
useful only for grazing purposes. Mr. Freeman developed his herd and
had considerable fortune with it until the extremely dry winter of
1875-76, when nearly half of his sheep were destroyed. In the mean-
time, however, he had carried out a successful experiment for the raising
of grain, having planted six hundred forty acres in barley. The fields
harvested a crop averaging twelve sacks to the acre, and that, too, with
a season's rainfall of only four and a half inches. This success with
grain raising, coupled with the heavy losses incurred in his flocks, deter-
mined him to abandon the sheep industry, and he therefore sold about
sixteen thousand head to Lucky Baldwin, owner of the Santa Anita
Rancho. After that Mr. Freeman steadily devoted his energies to the
growing of grain and never lost a crop. He also studied and worked
out many notable improvements on his vast property, and was particu-
larly successful in making available a splendid natural water supply
throuch artesian wells, so that hundreds and thousands of acres became
a source of steady production by irrigated farming.
With the incoming of a large number of easterners in 1885 Mr
Freeman found it expedient to dispose of a portion of his vast ranch.
The soyth half was sold and later divided into small tracts. The present
site of Inglewood is part of the old' rancho.
At the height of his grain raising experience Mr. Freeman raised
in 1880 a million bushels of grain, and sent an entire shipload of
wheat to Liverpool.
He was a man of great generosity, gave liberally to public institu-
tions and causes, was very active in the Chamber of Commerce in Los
Angeles, serving as its president two terms, and was a director in the
Southern California Railway for many years, it being a branch of the
Santa Fe system. Mrs. Freeman died in 1874. She was the mother
of two sons and one daughter. The daughter is Mrs. Charles H. How-
land of Los Angeles.
Major Charles H. Rowland came to southern California thirty-
five years ago. He was then in the flush of yonn^- manhood, and came
here rot to retire but to work and to serve. While in lat^r years he has
had much leisure for the contemplative life. Major Howland for the
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 125
greater part has been extremely busy as an engineer and manager of
large property interests in and around Los Angeles, and is one of the
notable men in this section of the state.
He was born near Toronto, Canada, March 25, 1863, son of Fred-
erick A. and Matilda Margaret (,Musson) Howland. His father was
descended from Henry Howland, who settled in Massachusetts in 1624,
a brother of John Howland, one of the hundred and one passengers of
the Mayflower who landed at Plymouth in 1620. His mother was from
an old Huguenot family.
Up to the age of twelve Major Howjand attended private school
and after that the Upper Canada College at Toronto to the age of six-
teen. With that experience and equipment he started for the Canadian
Northwest as assistant to the chief of the astronomical section of the
Special Sur\'ev for the Canadian government. The corps was employed
in establishing initial points and meridians from which lines were run
for the laying out of the public lands in what are now the provinces of
Alberta and Saskatchewan. After a year Mr. Howland was appointed
inspector of lands for the Hudson Bay Company, and his duties required
much driving and traveling over the country that lies between Manitoba
and the Rockies. That was before the first railway lines were built
through the Canadian Northwest and the country was inhabited only
by Indians.
After two more years of this varied and eventful experience Mr.
Howland came to Los Angeles. As a surveyor and engineer he worked
all through the southern part of the state. He ran the preliminary
survey line for the Santa Fe Railroad from Los Angeles to Port Bal-
lona and Santa Monica. After three years he became manager for
Daniel Freeman's twenty-five thousand acre ranch, extending from the
Baldwin Hills to the northern limits of Redondo City. Major Howland
married a daughter of Daniel Freeman, and for many years has had the
executive control of the extensive interests of the estate. From the old
ranch have since been carved the sites for the following cities: Ingle-
wood, Playa del Rev, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach,
Hawthorne and a part of Venice. The Freeman interests owned an
office building in Los Angeles, a continuous brick kiln at Inglewood
which furnished bricks for most of the older business blocks in Los An-
geles, and at one time they had a steamer in operation hauling coal from
British Columbia to San Pedro. There is still two thousand acres of the
ranch undivided near Inglewood, and Major Howland farms that ex-
tensive property.
Major Howland was formerly a director in the Broadway Bank
and Trvist Company at Los Angeles. He is a director of the Seaside
Water Company, which is the holding company of the Virginia Hotel at
Long Beach. He is also a director in the Long Beach Bath House and
Amusement Company, and is a member of the Committee on Agricul-
ture and Horticulture of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce,
In the Adjutant General's office at Sacramento can be found the
militan- record of Major Howland. In brief it is as follows: Enlisted
in Troop D, Cavalrs' National Guard of California, August 30, 1895:
promoted corporal and sergeant of the same troop, commissioned first
lieutenant October 12, 1896: commissioned captain of the same troop
November 22, 1897: commissioned first heutenant and aide de camp.
First Brigade, October 23, 1905 : commissioned major and engineer of-
ficer, First Brigade. September 3, 1907; placed on the retired list Oc-
126 LOS ANGELES
tober 14, 1909, by Act of the Legislature approved March 22, 1909 ; and
commissioned major, Urdnance Department, Alay 17, 1909. His last
duties were as Major Urdnance Department, Inspector of Small Arms
Practice, First Brigade, and as such he built the State Rifle Range in
Sholl Canyon. He was placed on the retired list and withdrawn from
active service with the rank of major on April 13, 1916.
Major Howland is an independent voter in politics. He married
at Los Angeles September 2Z, 1888, Grace Elizabeth Freeman, daughter
of the late Daniel Freeman, a sketch of whose career is found elsewhere
in this publication. Major and Mrs. Howland erected the beautiful
Episcopal church at Inglewood known as the Church of the Holy Faith
as a memorial to their mothers. The cornerstone of the church was
laid by Bishop Johnson April 26, 1913, and the building was conse-
crated November 8, 1914. It is a beautiful memorial and a splendid
addition to the churches and church buildings of the diocese. The
building grpup consists of the church, the rectory and the parish hall.
The church is a beautiful structure of the English Gothic style modified
to suit southern California conditions, and well justifies the architect's
"attempt to realize a permanent and monumental structure that shall
stand for centuries as a work of art and shall fitly express the Ejjiscopal
church in southern California." The parish house, corresponding in
style with the church, also has a large auditorium, guild hall and kitchen,
and the rectory is an eleven-room, modern home.
On the bronze tablet at the entrance of the church is the follow-
ing inscription, words from Bishop Johnson's dedicatory address :
"Through this church two mothers will throughout the ages plead with
every generation to come and rest awhile and pray. Think of the weary
ones who will find rest here ; think of the sorrowful ones who will here
find peace ; think of the wayward ones who will find guidance : think
of the yearning ones whose earnest desires will be satisfied. You who
know what is in every mother's heart, can you think of a memorial for
a mother more fitting than this one, that is to bring rest and peace, and
guidance and joy, to generation after generation yet unborn? I cannot.
And as 1 bear these sainted ones in mind, in whose memory it has been
erected, I pray that they may invoke God's blessing upon us and ours
through all time to come until the day dawns anrl the shadows flee
away."
John B. Bushnell for a quarter of a century has sustained a vital
relationship to the growing and expanding institutions and affairs of
southern California, particularly at Los Angeles. Mr. Bushnell has been
especially prominent in financial circles for many years.
He was born at Peru in LaSalle county, Illinois, November 23, 1865.
His father, William Bushnell, who was born at Norwich, Connecticut,
in 1816, was educated in New England and became a contractor. On
coming west he located at Princeton, Illinois, which many people then
thought was destined to be a large and important city. As a contractor
he did much state and county work in the central west, and later specialized
his business in the erection of government lighthouses and life saving
stations, and his organization put up most of those stations around the
Great Lakes. For twenty-five y^ars he was very active as the principal
contractor in the state. For many years he made his home at Evanston,
Illinois, where he died in 1890. In New York City he married Mary
Fowler McKean, and they were the parents of eleven children.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 127
John B. Bushnell, youngest of the family, attended granunar and higli
schools at Evanston, graduating from the latter at the age of eighteen.
He had a busy career as secretary of the Chicago Newspaper Union until
1890, when ill health forced him out of that occupation and from that
part of the country. Coming to the southwest, he worked on a cattle
ranch at Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was then in the employ of the
Atlantic & Pacific, now the Santa Fe Railroad, until 1892. Since the
latter year Mr. Bushnell has been identified as a resident and business
man with Los Angeles. He was engaged in the loan business under the
name John B. Bushnell Company for many years, and since 1909 it has
been one of the leading firms for handling stocks and bonds, being a
member of the Los Angeles Stock Exchange.
Mr. Bushnell organized the Jonathan Club, one of the best known
social organizations of southern California, in 1894, and was honored as
its first vice-president. In 1897 he organized and became president of
the Columbia Club, which brought out Henry T. Gage and was chiefly
instrumental in electing him governor of California. This club afterward
merged with the Union League Club. Mr. Bushnell has been a leader in
the organization of many other California institutions. He is a York
Rite Mason and Shriner, Knight of Pythias and Odd Fellow, enjoys a
membership in the Jonathan Club, is a member of the Gamut Club, San
Gabriel Country Club, -\.utomobile Club of Southern California, a life
member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and is an associate member of
the Ellis Club. In politics he is a republican. Mr. Bushnell has two
children; Margaret, a graduate of the Marlborough School for Girls, is
the wife of William E. Shields of Yokohama, Japan. The son, George E.,
■ graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and is now a successful
• merchant at Pocatello, Idaho.
Harry E. Teter, stocks and bonds, has been identified with a num-
ber of successful enterprises which he has assisted in financing and pro-
moting. He is one of the younger men in the financial district of south-
ern California.
He was born at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, February 7, 1884, son of
Alvin J. and Eva E. (Barker) Teter. When he was twelve years old his
parents moved from Mount Pleasant, where he had attended public
school, to Topeka, Kansas, where his education was finished with two
years in high school. His first business employment was in the general
offices of the Santa Fe Railroad Company at Topeka. He was there
tvTO years. During that time he had an opportunity to make a visit
west to Los Angeles, and it was, not long afterward that he resigned his
position at Topeka and established himself, permanently as it has proved,
in California. For two years he was secretary to the Board of Examiners
of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Since then he has been in
business for himself. For a time he was in the mining and brokerage
business at Ogden, Utah, and became vice-president of the Interstate
Brokerage Company there. Having- sold out his Ogden interests he
returned to Los Angeles in 1910 and established the present H. E. Teter
& Company, Stocks and Bonds, of which he has since been president.
In 1915 Mr. Teter was one of the organizers of the Big Jim Gold
Mining Company, which in 1917 sold that part of their property upon
which the mine was located for approximately a million dollars. In 1910
he assisted in financing the Midway Northern Oil Company, which is
one of the successful of the smaller oil companies of California. He
128 LOS ANGELES
was also one of the organizers and from 1912 to 1914 was president of
the Standard Corrugated Pipe Company of San Francisco and Los
Angeles. In 1918 Mr. Teter assisted in organizing and financing the
Palmer Photoplay Corporation, the only institution teaching photoplay
writing that is recognized and endorsed by the motion picture industry.
Mr. Teter is a member of the Los Angeles Stock Exchange, Los
Angeles Athletic Club, Brentwood Country Club, and is a republican voter.
At San Francisco July 23, 1909, he married Pauline Recktenwald. They
have one son, H. E., Jr., born in 1911, now a student in the Urban Mili-
tary Academy.
James Calhoun Drake is president of the Los Angeles Trust &
Savings Bank, an institution which with over three millions of capital and
surplus stands in the front rank of financial houses on the Pacific Coast.
Mr. Drake became president of this institution in 1903, soon after it was
founded, and in many otker ways he has been influentially identified
with the growth and history of Los Angeles since about twenty years
ago he retired from service in the United States Navy, which he had
entered as a boy cadet.
Mr. Drake was born at Cincinnati, Washington county, Arkansas,
July 26, 1858, son of Wesley and Martha (Kellum) Drake. As a
schoolboy he received an appointment to the United States Naval Acad-
emy, and in 1880 graduated. As a midshipman and ensign he cruised
several years in the Mediterranean and in the West Indies and Central
?nd South American coasts, and Was then assigned to duty in the United
States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and for two years had command of
government vessels on the coast of North Carolina and Georgia. In
1890 he began a three years' cruise around the world in the Alliance,
spending most of the time in Asiatic waters. In 1893 he was appointed
inspector of ordnance at San Francisco, and while there the duty fell to
him of equipping the Olympia and Oregon, which a few years later
played such a brilliant part in American naval history of the Pacific.
Mr. Drake retired from the navy and took up civil life at Los An-
geles in 1896. Besides his long service as executive head of the Los An-
geles Trust & Savings Bank, he has been for many years director of the
First National Bank^ has served as waterworks commissioner, and is a
director of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance, the Southern California,
the Edison Company, the California Delta Farms, the Southern Cali-
fornia Telephone Company and various other concerns.
April 26, 1893, he married Miss Fanny Wilcox, and they became
the parents of two children. The Drake home, erected a few years
ago, is one of the magnificent private residences of Los Angeles.
John S. Cravens has been a conspicuous figure in financial and busi-
ness afi^airs in southern California for over twenty years. A long list
of business, social and civic organizations honor him as a member and
participant.
Mr. Cravens was born at Kansas City, Missouri, March 5, 1871,
a son of John Kenny and Frances Catlett (Frame) Cravens. He
graduated from the Kansas City High School in 1888, and from Yale
University with the class of 1893. On December 28, 1893, Mr. Cravens
married Miss Mildred Myers, of St. Louis, daughter of George S. Myers,
founder of the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company.
After his university career Mr. Cravens was engaged with the Liggett
& Myers Tobacco Company in various capacities, and was an active
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FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 129
participant in the negotiations which culminated the sale of that company
on January 1, 1900, to the American Tobacco Company.
Mr. Cravens I)egan spending his winters at Pasadena in 1897 He
has been a prominent resident of southern California since 1900, in
which year he acquired interests in the Edison Electric Company of Los
Angeles, and was chosen first president of that corporation. In 1901
he helped organize the Southwestern National Bank, and resigning as
[^resident of the Edison Electric Company was made executive head of
the bank in October, 1902. This bank and the Los Angeles National Bank
and the First National I'.ank were subsequently merged, taking the name
of the First National Bank, of which Mr. Cravens has since been vice-
president and director.
Mr. Cravens is a director of the Los Angeles Trust & Savings
l'>ank, is president of the American Conduit Company of Los Angeles,
manufacturers of fiber conduits, is a director of the Dominquez Land
Corporation, a director of the Los Angeles Extension Company, and a
director of the Chino Land & Water Company.
He is president of the Barlow Sanitarium;, a member of the Cali-
fornia Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Bolsa Chica Gun Club, Mid-
wick Country Club, Yale Club of New York City, Englewood Country
Club of Englewood, New Jersey, Bohemian Club of San Francisco,
Bankers Clul) of New York City, Graduates Club of New Haven, Metro-
politan Club of Washington. In politics he is a republican and is a mem-
ber of the Presbyterian church.
Mr. Cravens was formerly chairman of the executive committee of
the Southwest Division of the Military Training Camp Association. Out
of the plans and work of that organization as a national affair grew
the ofificers training camp at the beginning of the great war. Mr. Cravens
is devoted to southern California as a place of residence and business,
but he sacrificed his convenience and pleasure for the greater part of the
period in which America was engaged in the war to devote himself to
the strenuous task of war work at Washington as a "dollar a year man."
He was in Washington from October, 1917, to April, 1919, as chief of
the Federal agencies section of the Council of National Defense. At
the time he resigned he was the recipient of an official letter from the
director of the Council of National Defense, a document that speaks
for itself:
"It is with far from a prefunctory feeling that I respond to your
letter in which you take leave of the Council of National Defense. As
you know I was extremely reluctant to have you go, for in many respects
these are more trying days in an administrative sense than were those
of the actual war period. But your reasons for returning to California
were so unanswerable that the Council could no longer in justice to your-
self ask you to postpone your departure.
"This brings me to the point of telling you, if I can do so adequatelv
in the brief space of a letter, how very genuinely appreciative the Secre-
tary of War, as chairman of the Council, and the other five cabinet
members forming the Council, as well as its director, are of the highly
important and faithful contribution \\-hich you made to the government
of the United States during your long and untiring service here. Not
only as perhaps the most potent figure in the Council's field organization,
the antennae of which stretched out through the states into almost even,'
hamlet of the land, and which during the war formed a mighty national
system, but in your dual capacity as chairman of the Council's Highwavs
130 LOS ANGELES
Transport Committee, which is performing a most vital task in the interest
of the people of the country, you have left an impress upon the history of
the Council and in the life of the nation that will be ineiifaceable
"It is difficult to analyze a man's qualities, but I think that those
responsible for the striking success of your work here were your entire
absence of self-interest, your tact, your industry, and, above all, your per-
ception that our war making was in essence simply co-ordinated action
on the part of all elements of the public. Particularly with regard to
the last thought, I do not think that anybody has left Washington with a
more powerful and sentient grasp of the civilian factors in the Nation, the
welding together of which forged the unity which made America's war
effort a surprise even to itself.
"We shall all miss you, but you have richly earned your return to
civilian life, and I offer you every good wish therein."
Capt.mn Robert E. Hunter, a graduate mechanical engineer, is vice
president and director of the Blankenhorn-Hunter-Dulin Company, one of
the most successful investment, stock and bond houses on the Pacific
coast. Captain Hunter only recently returned from France, where he
commanded a battery of field artillery on the fighting front during the
great allied drive of 1918.
Captain Hunter was born in Chicago, Illinois, November 20, 1886,
son of Edward S. and Elizabeth jM. Hunter. His father was born in
Troy, New York, and in his childhood the family moved to Chicago,
where he was reared and educated and where he has been a member of
the Chicago Board of Trade since 1884. He is one of the veteran grain
operators in Chicago, and his name is one of the best known in Board
of Trade and financial circles of that city.
Robert E. Hunter attended public schools in Chicago, the University
High School, and in l'X)3 entered the Throop College of Technology at
Pasadena, California. On graduating in 1906 he entered Yale University,
where he specialized in mechanical engineering and was graduated with
a degree in that school in 1911.
For one year Captain Hunter practiced his profession, especially
along the line of structural engineering in Chicago, and then returned
to Pasadena and soon afterward formed a partnership with David Blank-
enhorn in the corporation Blankenhorn-Hunter Company. Mr. Hunter
is vice-president and director of this business. The company represents
many large interests, and for several years have handled the financial
investments of William Wrigley, Jr., in southern California, and the com-
pany was the chief intermediary in the purchase of Catalina Island by
Mr. Wrigley in 1919. Mr. Hunter is one of the executive officials in
the new organization for handling the property of Catalina Island, being
vice-president and treasurer of the Santa Catalina Island Company and
vice-president and treasurer of the Wilmington Transportation Company.
He is also a director of the Corona h'oothill Lemon Company and is
president of the Hunter Fireproof Storage Company.
Captain Hunter enlisted in August, 1917, and was assigned to duty
in France attending the artillery school at Saumur and joining the 119th
Field Artillery of the 32 Division on graduation. He was in that battle
which stands out perhaps most prominently among those in which the
American troops participated, Chauteau Thierry, to the Vesle River, and
was also in the operations around Soissons. He received his honorable
discharge December 8, 1918.
Captain Hunter is a member of the California Club, the Midwick
{^.f{^d
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 131
Country Club and the University Club of Chicago. He is a member of
the Episcopal church. September 17 , I'M 3, at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin,
he married Gwendolyn Mitchell. They have two daughters, Helen and
Louise.
RAr.PH B. Lr.oYD. While Mr. Lloyd's name is identified with a
number of important business enterprises, manufacturing, lands and live
stock, he has also contributed his share to the development of California
resources as an oil man. He deserves lasting credit as the locator of the
oil resources in the Ventura oil field, and as the man who possessed the
faith, the courage and the enterprise to promote the development of the
region.
Mr. Lloyd was born at Neosho, Missouri, February 28, 1875, son
of Lewis Marshall and Sarah Elizabeth Lloyd. He first attended pri-
vate school, and in 1887, when his parents moved to Ventura, California,
he was in the public schools there to the age of fourteen. He received
a high school education at Berkeley, California, and in 1895 entered the
University of California, class of 1899, having specialized in social
science.
After his university career Mr. Lloyd returned to Los Angeles and
became associated with his father in the cattle business, handling large
herds of live stock between Mexico, Arizona, LOs Angeles and Ven-
tura Counties. In 1904 Mr. Lloyd became vice president and general
manager of the National Tank and Pipe Company, his chief associate
being William E. Hampton of Los Angeles. This company manufac-
tured pipe and tanks for mining, irrigation and city water works. Wliile
with that business Mr. Lloyd bought land and built a manufacturing
plant at Portland, Oregon, and remained there as manager until 1911.
Having sold his Pipe Company interest, Mr. Lloyd invested in
Portland real estate, which he now holds, and returned to Los Angeles
and at once took an active hand in oil development. Some years
previously, in 1898, he had convinced himself by his own investigations
of the promise of oil in the Ventura district, and for ten or fifteen
years he tried to interest others in that district. However, he failed
to convince any of the knowing capitalists, and when he returned from
Portland he determined to risk his capital and his personal enterprise
on the project. He, with others, bought and leased about fourteen
thousand acres of land on the apex of the Ventura d9me, made some
preliminary explorations, and eventually succeeded in interesting the
Shell Company of California in the project. The Ventura dome is now
one of the promising fields of California. The Shell Company, the
General Petroleum Corporation and the State Consolidated Oil Com-
pany are all engaged in its development. In much of his oil operations
Mr. Lloyd has been closely associated with Joseph B. Dabney.
Mr. Lloyd is secretarj' and treasurer and general manager of the
Ventura Land and Water Company, a company that was incorporated
by his father on September 28, 1887, and has always remained a family
corporation. Mr. Lloyd is a member of the Masonic Order, the Delta
Upsilon College Fraternity, the University Club, Chamber of Com-
merce, and from college times has maintained a close interest in out-
door sports. While in university he excelled in track athletics, and has
some forty medals which were awarded his prowess. He established
some records in track events in the intercollegiate contests between
Stanford University and the University of California.
At Los Angeles, January 28, 1904, Mr. Lloyd married Miss Lulu
Hull. They have four daughters.
132 LOS ANGELES
Wellington Charles Burke, M. D. The late Dr. Wellington
Charles Burke, of Los Angeles, although not long a resident of the city,
during the period he was located here established himself as one of the
distinguished men of his profession, and had his career not been cut
short, would have gained a fame that probably would have been inter-
national on account of his special work with reference to rectal diseases,
upon which he was an admitted authority. He was born at Fishkill,
New York, May 30, 1866, of Scotch and Protestant Irish ancestry. After
attending the village schools of his native place, when only eight years
of age he entered the grammar school of Newburg, New York, and com-
pleted its courses. His parents then moving to Kansas City, Missouri, he,
in 1877, entered the high school of his ward and after being graduated
from it took a business college course, from which he was graduated with
honors in 1885.
From childhood it was his ambition to become a physician, and after
reading medicine for three years, in 1889 he became a student of the
Medical Department of the Missouri State University, from which he
was graduated in 1892 as president of his class and missing first honors
by one-sixth of one per cent. Immediately after graduation Doctor
Burke was elected to the faculty of the University Medical Club and was
given the chair of first assistant demonstrator of anatomy. One year
later he was elected co-demionstrator of anatomy and associate professor
of operative surgery in the post graduate faculty, visiting surgeon to
the university dispensary, president of the Alumni Association, second
vice-president of the Twin City Medical Society, and a member of other
medical societies. Later he was made an honorary member of the Kansas
State Medical Association and the Grand River Medical Society.
Until 1895 Doctor Burke remained at Kansas City, but in that year
came to Los Angeles, forming a partnership here with Dr. W. G.
Cochran. Two years later he severed this connection and established
himself in offices in the Lindley Building, continuing alone until his death.
He had a chair in the University Medical College of Los Angeles, and
was a member of the County, State and National Medical Associations.
When overtaken by his last illness Doctor Burke was just completing an
exhaustive work on rectal surgery, on which he specialized. He was much
beloved by his patients and associates in the medical profession. A ready
and pleasing speaker, he was very popular and much sought after as a
public speaker and toastmaster of banquets of physicians and surgeons.
Bringing with him the most advanced ideas of more eastern practitioners.
Doctor Burke found ready recognition at Los Angeles, and from 1900
to 1903 was special surgeon for the Santa Fe Railroad. A man of more
than average height, he being six feet, four inches tall. Doctor Burke
commanded attention everywhere, and this presence, combined with his
handsome features and delightful personality, made him one never to
be forgotten. His untimely demise was mourned as a public loss, and
his memory is tenderly cherished by many outside of his immediate
family.
In 1892 Doctor Burke was united in marriage with Harriet Eggers
Carlstrom, sister of Professor John T. Eggers, M. D., of Kansas City.
Missouri. Mrs. Burke was taken by her parents when seventeen years
old from Fairfield, Iowa, to Kansas City, Missouri, and she was educated
at the Female Seminary of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Doctor and Mrs
Burke had two children, namely: Norman and Ruth. During the
long illness of Doctor Burke prior to his demise the family exchequer
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 135
was depleted and Mrs. Burko felt impelled to become a producer in order
to meet the living expenses of her family. A cultured lady, she naturally
turned toward literary work, and for years was a special writer and
society editor for the leadin^sj^ papers of Los Angeles. She is now one
of the most experienced newspaper women of this part of the state.
Inheriting her mother's literary ability, Mrs. Ruth Burke Stephens,
senior member of the firm of Stephens & Sterry, publicity bureau and
news service, with offices at Nos. 337-338 Blanchard Building, Los
Angeles, has become one of the leading publicity writers of southern
California. Although still in her teens when she was graduated from
the Los Angeles schools, she began her newspaper career, handling the
difficult departments devoted to railroads and the stock exchange in addi-
tion to handling society items. In 1912 she was married to Stubert B.
Stephens, a son of Chancellor David S. Stephens of the University of
Kansas City, and resided in Kansas City until 1914, when she returned to
Los Angeles and re-entered the newspaper field. Early in 1916 she began
specializing on publicity work, and when this country entered the world
war Mrs. Stephens developed into the most efifective worker in the city.
She handled all the publicity work for the Women's Liberty Loan Com-
mittee, of which she was a member, during the last four loan drives, and
also of the War Savings campaign. So efifective did she prove herself
that she was transferred to the State War Savings Organization, and
was publicity director of that organization for southern California and
editor and business manager of the War Savings Stamp News. At one
time Mrs. Stephens was editor of the magazine known as "Baby's World."
Rev. Philip Williams, of the Order of St. Benedict, and pastor of
All Souls Catholic church at Alhambra, is a priest whose constructive
work and leadership made him widely known in several southern Cali-
fornia parishes.
He was born at Leavenworth, Kansas, May 12, 1869, son of John
B. and Mary (Prendergast) Williams. To the age of ten his education
was directed by the Catholic parochial schools. He then attended public
school, and in 1882 entered St. Benedict's College at Atchison, Kansas,
He pursued both his classical and theological studies in that institution,
and was ordained a priest July 26, 1893. During four )'ears of his
seminary course he was teacher of oratory at St. Benedict's and continued
in that capacity for four years after his ordination. His book on that
subject is used in many Catholic colleges. His first regular pastorate
was in Sacred Heart church at Atchison, Kansas, where he spent four
and a half years and five years as the founder and pastor of St. Benedict's
parish at Kansas City, Kansas. While stationed there he erected the
church, school, parish house and Sisters' house. Altogether his record of
achievement is one that caused the people of southern California to enter-
tain the highest expectations of his efficiency, and in that they were not
disappointed.
His transfer to California brought him at first to the parish of
St. Catherine's at Avalon on Catalina Island. While there he erected
a church building and had a prosperous pastorate of four years. From
there he came to Alhambra and built All Souls Church and Rectory,
where he has been the beloved minister for a number of years. He was
pastor of the parish when the handsome new church was dedicated on
November 16, 1913. The ceremony of dedication had as its most con-
spicuous figure Very Rev. Monsignor Harnett, vicar general of the
diocese. In his sermon Dr. Harnett complimented both the pastor and
134 LOS ANGELES
people upon their energy and devotion in raising in the brief period of
their coming together so creditable a structure to the worship of God.
Andrew Mullen was one of the stalwart, dignified and very suc-
cessful business figures in Los Angeles life, and it is significant of his
character that the business with which he was so long identified as a
merchant is still continued and is one of the most perfectly appointed
clothing stores on the Pacific Coast.
Andrew Mullen was born in County Mayo, Ireland, October 4,
1832, but was only three years old when his parents came to the United
Slates and settled at Albany, New York. The public schools of that
town gave him a limited education. He was very young when he went
west to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his best training and his broadening
outlook on affairs and men were acquired by actual contact with
business. He was associated with his brother under the firm name of
Mullen Brothers & Company in the wholesale woolen business at Mil-
waukee for a number of years. Later they moved their headquarters
to Chicago, and were at one time known as one of the leading importers
of woolens in this city.
It was because of ill health that Andrew Mullen finally sold out
his interest in the Chicago establishment, and on January 1, 1888, came
to Los Angeles.
Not long afterward he bought a large interest in the firm of Bluett
i: Sullivan. This was a business which had been established some
years before by W. C. Bluett, J. C. Daly and J. B. Sullivan. W. C.
Bluett is now deceased, and Mr. Mullen acquired the interest of Mr.
Daly. J. B. Sullivan has long been identified with the business and is
now secretary of the corporation. With the coming of Mr. Mullen the
firm name was changed to Mullen & Bluett, and in 1890 incorporated as
the Mullen & Bluett Clothing Company. Andrew Mullen was president
of the corporation until his death on ]\Iarch 4, 1899.
For many years the store was at First and Spring streets, but on
March 10, 1910, it was moved to the corner of Sixth and Spring and
Broadway, where it occupies the entire ground floor of the Story
Building. This great business, while still continued as the Mullen &
Bluett Clothing Company, has as its active managers only members of
the Mullen family and Mr. Sullivan, secretary of the corporation. Miss
Marie Mullen is president of the corporation, and Edward F. Mullen is
vice president.
It will be appropriate to quote a paragraph that appeared in a
local publication several years ago pertaining to the two older men in
the business: "The two older men who conducted the business for a
great many years were conspicuous figures in the business and social
life of Los Angeles. Mr. Bluett brought with him a habit contracted
in Ireland. He came in from his home to his business every morning
and returned every evening on horseback. He invariably rode a very
handsome saddle horse. Mr. Mullen was a tall figure, bent somewhat
when he arrived here by the accumulating years. They were both
gentlemen of the old school type, always most courteous in their deal-
ings with the public and always most considerate of every person in
their employ. Yet, in spite of this dignified mien and lacking as they
v.-ere in all the breeziness that characterizes the typical western Amer-
ican business man, they were just the same exceedingly American in
all their sentiments, and excellent citizens in every relation of life. The
real head of the house today, Edward F. Mullen, lacks somewhat of
Kyrndy^ytA^
FROAI THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 135
the towering stature of his father, but lacks nothing of the suavity of
manner and courtesy of conduct in his relations with the public which
marked the two elder men now gone from among us."
Andrew Mullen, though a Democrat, was appointed by Governor
Markham as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wliittier State
School and was president of the board. He was also one of the organ-
izers of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and was for some
years its treasurer. After his death the Board of Directors of the
Chamber, in a meeting held March 15, 1899, drew up special resolutions
of respect to his memory, and these resolutions were engrossed and
sent to his family.
Andrew Mullen was one of the organizers and a director of the
Columbia Trust Company, of the Citizens National Bank, and of the
California Clay Manufacturing Company. In the development of the
clay working industry of the state he deserves to be especially remem-
bered, as well as his active associates, W. H. Perry and other pioneer
business men.
Andrew Mullen married, at Brooklyn, New York, i\Iary Teresa
Deane. She was born in County Mayo, Ireland, and died in Los An-
geles May 29, 1910, a daughter of Judge Edward and Esnima (O'Fla-
herty) Deane. He was an Irish jurist and, after retiring from office,
moved to Brooklyn, New York. Both the Deane and O'Flaherty
families were of the old and prominent residents of Ireland. The Deane
estate in County Mayo was called "Carrygowan" and was between
Swine ford and Castlebar. Judge Deane died in the eastern states
years ago, and the widow died years later in Oakland, California.
Andrew Mullen and wife had eight children, including: Edward Fran-
cis, Marie Rose, Arthur Benedict, now deceased, and Genevieve, Mrs.
George Allan Hancock of Los Angeles.
Edward Francis Mullen w-as born at Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
August 8, 1864, and was educated in parochial schools and in Notre
Dame University at Notre Dame, Indiana. In 1883, at the age of nine-
teen, returning to Chicago, he went to work in the wholesale woolen
business of Mullen Brothers & Company. When his father sold out
his interest in that establishment he came to Los Angeles and for a
time was bookkeeper in the First National Bank. He then became
associated with his father in the purchase of the Bluett & Sullivan
concern, changing the name to Mullen & Bluett Clothing Company, of
which he has since been vice president. The growth and development
of this business has occupied all of Mr. Mullen's time and care, and
he acknowledges hardly any other interest besides his store and his
home, and consequently is allied with no societies. He is a member of
the Catholic Church. June 1, 1887, at Chicago, he married Mary Stella
Smith. They have two children, Andrew J., born at Los Angeles Sep-
tember 7, 1888, educated in St. Vincent's College of this city, and a
graduate of Santa Clara College, and is now clothing buyer for the
Mullen & Bluett Clothing Company. The daughter, Catherine, is Mrs.
Daniel F. Murphy, of San Francisco.
David M. Thomson is the Los Angeles representative and manager
of the Balfour-Guthrie Company, a firm known all over the world, with
ramifications in the transportation, grain and merchandise, insurance and
other branches of finance and commerce that well justify the claim made
that it is the largest private institution of its kind in the world.
The home offices of the company are in England, and David M.
13t) LOS ANGELES
Thomson is himself a Scotchman, though most of his business training
has been acquired in America. He was born at Edinburgh, August 6,
1873, son of Graham and Margaret McKenzie (Murray) Thomson. He
was educated in public and private schools and at the age of seventeen
entered a stock brokerage business and followed that line continuously
for fifteen years.
When the Balfour-Guthrie Company sent him to America Mr.
Thomson spent one year in training at San Francisco, and v/as then
sent to Los Angeles as manager of the local branch. The Los Angeles
office of the concern was opened in 1892, primarily in the land business
and loaning on land. The first local manager was Mr. Fortune, who
was succeeded a few years later by Mr. Pettigrew, who expanded the
business to the buying and selling of general merchandise. In 1902 J.
B. Lumgair became manager, and was succeeded b}^ Mr. Thomson in
1910.
The company handles many diflferent lines of merchandise, operat-
ing in food stuffs, building materials, and doing a general shipping and
commission business. At the present time they are taking over two of
the largest fire insurance companies in the United States. The company
also acted as agents for the Australian Wheat Board and .Australian
Government Line Steamers. The Los Angeles territory under the direct
management of Mr. Thomson comprises all of California south of the
Tehachap Mountains. For many years the business of the Balfour-
Guthrie Company (local) was small properties, but in the last two 3'ears
it has developed to a very large extent radiating in scope from the
Tehachap to the Mexican border. Mr. Thomson is a member of the
Los Angeles Grain Exchange, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, is a mem-
ber of the Masonic Order and is a Congregational! st in religion. He
married at Edinburgh, Scotland, Miss Annie McKenzie Morrison, on
December 13, 1904.
Samuel E. Burke has been a resident of Los Angeles since 1900,
is one of the best known and most capable dental surgeons of the city
and is also a man of high standing in Masonic circles in this state.
A native of Ontario, Canada, where he was born February 13, 1868,
he is a son of Joseph and Matilda Edith (Edgerton) Burke, both of
whom were natives of the north of Ireland. Dr. Burke attended gram-
mar and high schools in Ontario until 1899, and following that spent
two years clerking with McCrimmon Brothers at Lindsay, Ontario.
After that he was head of the dress silk goods department of Carsley
& Company at Toronto until 1893. His next business connection was
with the Duplex School Seat Company at Battle Creek, Michigan, but in
1893 he left that work and for three months was a student in the Uni-
versity of Michigan, and then attended the dental department of Lake
Forest University, now the Chicago College of Dental Surgery. He
graduated April 17, 1896, and was in practice at Bloomington, Illinois,
until 1900, when he came to Los Angeles.
Dr. Burke is a past master of Sunset Lodge No. 352, A. F. and A. M.,
having served as master during 1906-07. He is past principal sojourner,
scribe, king and high priest of Signet Chapter No. 57, R. A. M., has
held all the chairs of Los Angeles Council No. 11, R. & S. M., is a mem-
ber of Los Angeles Commandery No. 43, K. T., and is also a Scottish
Rite Mason. April 5, 1918, he was elected most illustrious grand master
of the Grand Council of California, and on October 10, 1918, was elected
junior grand warden of the Grand Lodge of the state. Dr. Burke is a
member of the University Club, and is a republican in politics and a
member of the Episcopal church.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 137
April 5, 1909, he married in Los Angeles Hazel Rosenberg. By a
former marriage he has one child: Frazie, aged nineteen, a graduate of
the grammar schools and the Manual Arts Fligh School, and on June
19, 1919, graduated in the law department of the Southern California
University. His daughter Edith is attending the public schools.
William H. Workman Jr., whose special interests for the greater
part have been electrical engineering, and who has many important
achievements to his credit in that field, is also a financial expert and
was the man chiefly instrumental in organizing the Morris Plan Bank
in Lbs Angeles.
Mr. Workman was born at Los Angeles, March 21, 1874, and is
still living in the house where he was bom. This residential landmark
was built by his grandfather in 1865. Mr. Workman is a son of Wil-
liam H. Workman Sr., and the details of the history of this interesting
and prominent family of southern California are found on other pages
of this publication.
Mr. Workman Jr. graduated A. B. from St. Vincent's College in
1893, and in 1895 received the degree Master of Arts. He received his
technical training at Stanford University, completing a four years'
course in electrical engineering in two years' time. After obtaining
his diploma from Stanford he returned to Los Angeles and became
assistant to the superintendent and in charge of the testing of insulators
on poles for the Southern California Power Company, vi^hich was then
undertaking the rather daring proposition of transmitting electric power
a distance of eighty-three miles from Santa Ana Canyon above Red-
lands to Los Angeles. A year later this property was absorbed by the
Southern California Edison Company, with which Mr. Workman con-
tinued in charge of insulation of underground systems with the title
of assistant superintendent. Later he was made superintendent, and
finally assistant to the president, John B. Miller.
In 1903 Mr. Workman gave up his professional work and spent a
year traveling around the world. He resumed his profession as an
expert on electric properties, his services being retained in that capacity
by N. W. Harris & Company of Chicago, bankers. At the request of
this firm, in December, 1904, Mr. Workman became first vice president
and managing director of the Seattle-Tacoma Power Company at
Seattle, Washington. This property under Mr. Workman's direction
was given a high degree of efficiency, and in 1908 it was sold at a profit
to the stockholders. Mr. Workman was invited to remain by the new
owners, but he declined and returned to Los Angeles, where, after a
brief rest, he took charge in the spring of 1909 of the manufacturing
department of the Union Oil Company, with headquarters at San Fran-
cisco.
, While in San Francisco Mr. Workman met Mrs. Elizabeth Gowen
Haskins, whose husband, Thomas Haskins, had died while secretary of
the United States Legation at Pekin, China. Mr. Workman and Mrs.
Haskins were married September 3, 1909, and at once took a trip
abroad, spending most of their honeymoon in the Chateau country of
the Loire in France. Three months later, having returned to Los
Angeles, Mr. Workman engaged in the stock and bond business with
D. A. McGilvray under the firm name McGilvray, Workman & Com-
pany. The partnership was dissolved in 1914, Mr. Workman then be-
coming secretary to his father in managing the large Workman estate.
Several years ago Mr. Workman assumed the chief responsibility
138 LOS ANGELES
in interesting local capital and in directing a campaign of education
preparatory to the organization of a Morris Plan Bank. This bank
was opened for business at Los Angeles September 1, 1917, and it
was the only important institution outside of war industries or org^aniza-
tions directly related to the war which came into existence that year.
Mr. Workman is secretary, manager and director of the bank. The
ideals and purposes of the Morris Plan Bank are probably too well
known to need any reference here. It is essentially a bank for the bor-
rower of good character without assets and securities normally accepted
by commercial banks. Its primary object is perhaps to combat the
"loan shark system" and furnish the same emergency service for which
loan sharks charge extortionate interest rates. In the fourteen months
prior to January 1, 1919, the Morris Plan Bank of Los Angeles loaned
$1,010,550.00 to eight thousand people, and it had also served an im-
portant purpose as a medium for the sale and distribution of hundreds
of Liberty Bonds, especially in denominations of fifty and a hundred
dollars.
Mr. Workman is a member of the California Club. He and his
wife have three young children: Mary, born in 1911, a student in St.
Mary's School for Girls : William H. Ill, born in 1915, and Betsy,
born in 1917.
Rev. Patrick J. McGratii, pastor of Our Lady of Angels church,
of San Diego, had seven years of service as pastor of Mary Star of the
Sea church at San Pedro. This is one of the older churches of the
Southern California diocese. The present church edifice wis erected
in i\Iarch, 1889, under Rt. Rev. Francis Mora, D. D. The first pastor
of the parish was Rev. D. C. Tanguerey.
Father McGrath was educated and trained for the priesthood in
the east, and has been zealously promoting the work of his church in
California for twelve years. He was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland,
November 6, 1873, son of Michael McGrath and Ann Bowe. His early
education was supplied by the National schools of Ireland. At the age
of sixteen he came to New York City, and for five years was a student
in St. Francis College at Brooklyn. He studied theology and philosophy
in St. Michael's College at Toronto, Canada, for nine years, and on
June 9, 1906, was ordained a priest for the Los Angeles ancl Monterey
diocese.
He received his first appointment July 14, 1906, as assistant at
the Cathedral in Los Angeles. March 6, 1907, he was appointed assist-
ant of St. Patrick's parish m Los Angeles, and November 19, 1908, be-
came pastor of St. Aloysius and St. Anthony's parishes at Florence and
Downey in Los Angeles county. One of his interesting services was
as chaplain in the Shciman Indian School at Riverside frcri July 2,
1909, to March 20, 1912. Father McGrath took up his work as pastor
of Mary Star of the Sea church in San Pedro, March 20, 1912. He was
transferred to Our Lady of Angels church, San Diego, Januaiy 1, 1919.
He is a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Young Men's In-
stitute.
William Edward McVay. While widely known in Los Angeles
financial circles as one of the most progressive bankers and citizens,
William E. McVay has a very interesting distinction in the fact that
throughout his thirty-one years' residence he may be said at least figura-
tively never to have changed his desk or employment. Changes have
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 139
gone on around him, and he has served several financial corporations of
different names, but all essentially one and the same, since each ivas
merely consolidation or reorganization of predecessors. He is now vice
president and director of the Guaranty Trust & Savings Bank, which is
the lineal successor of the first organization he joined on coming to
California.
Mr. McVay was born at Dixon, Illinois, October 25, 1864, son of
William J. and Sarah M. (Moore) McVay. His father is deceased and
his mother is living in Los Angeles. He acquired a high school educa-
tion at Dixon and also took a short course in the Bryant & Stratton
Business College at Chicago. His experience before coming to Cali-
fornia may be briefly summed up as bookkeeper and cashier for a gen-
eral merchandise store, employment for a year or more in the local
postoffice, and then as bookkeeper in the National Bank of his home
town.
Mr. McVay arrived in California in 1887, and first became secre-
tary of the Security Loan and Trust Company. This was succeeded
by the Union Bank of Savings, in which he was cashier, and that sub-
sequently was merged with what is now the Guaranty Trust & Savmgs
Bank. This is one of the leading financial institutions of southern Cali-
fornia, with resources of over twenty-four million dollars and with
capital of one and a half million dollars and surplus of seven hundred
fifty thousand dollars.
Mr. McVay has given the best years of his life and all his talents
and energies to this institution. He has formed no other important
business connections outside of the bank. However, he is interested
in public affairs and is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Whit-
tier State School, director and treasurer of the Y. M. C. A. and presi-
dent of the Union Rescue Mission of Los Angeles. He is a republican,
a member of the Immanuel Presbyterian church, and belongs to Los
Angeles Athletic Club, San Gabriel Country Club and the Automobile
Club of southern California.
At Princeton, Illinois, March 12, 1889, Mr. McVay married Miss
Kate Bryant. The Bryant family is one of the oldest and most prominent
in that section of northern Illinois. Mrs. McVay is a granddaughter of
John Howard Bryant, for many years a resident of Princeton, and a
brother of the famous poet, William Cullen Bryant. Mr. and Mrs.
McVay are the parents of five children : Laura E., who is unmarried
and is now in France, serving with the Y. M. C. A. organization ; Helene
S., wife of H. D. Paulin, of Imperial, California: Silence K., wife of
Howard W. Reynolds, of Los Angeles, and Frances A. and William
Bryant.
Elias Jackson Baldwin. Any publication devoted to Americans
of remarkable experience and achievement during the last century would
reasonably include the name of FJias Jackson Baldwin. One of Cali-
fornia's most famous characters, his name and work are of particular
interest to southern California as founder of the great Santa Anita
Rancho, which for a generation has been one of the show places around
Los Angeles, and which, under its present proprietor, Anita M. Baldwin,
is one of the most important sources of production of high-grade live
stock in California.
The Santa Anita Rancho was established by the late Mr. Baldwin
in 1873. It was while traveling to his Bear Valley mining property that
he first saw the San Gabriel Valley. He soon afterward bought the
original Santa Anita tract, containing some eight thousand five hundred
140 LOS ANGELES
acres, the purchase price being two hundred thousand dollars. Later
he acquired other tracts until he had iifty-four thousand acres in the
ranch. For all his other extensive properties, Air. Baldwin probably
took more pride in this rancho than in anything else. His holdings
were so great that he could drive in a direct line on his own property
for eighteen miles. He planned and built the water system for his
land, and in 1879 laid out a part of it through Walnut Grove, at ont
time owned the largest orange orchard in the state, estimated to be
worth ten millions of dollars, and developed nearly all the varieties of
semi-tropical and deciduous fruits, including oranges, lemons, walnuts,
almonds, peach, pear, apricot, prune, fig and Japanese persimmon trees,
besides large plantations of olives, pepper, coffee and tea plants. The
vineyard and winery produced annually about thirty thousand gallons
of brandy and a hundred thousand gallons of wine. From other por-
tions of the ranch were harvested yearly twenty-five hundred tons of
alfalfa and twenty-eight thousand sacks of grain.
The rancho has been described again and again in press and litera-
ture and of it the late H. H. Bancroft, the historian, said: "It is a spot
whose attractions, both natural and artificial, it would be difficult to
exaggerate, and we know not whether most to admire its vast extent,
the magnitude and diversity of its interests, the beauty of its situation,
the skill with which its various operations have been planned, or the
well nigh perfect generalship with which they have been executed."
During Mr. Baldwin's lifetime the fame of his rancho was largely
due to his efforts and unparalleled success as a breeder and developer
of thoroughbreds. At one time the pastures of the foothills afforded
grazing grounds for about twenty thousand head of sheep and two
thousand dairy cows, while the stables and paddocks were the breeding
and training ground of some of the greatest running horses in America.
Under its present ownership the Santa Anita Rancho and its Anoakia
Breeding Farm has a number of the real "thoroughbreds," distinguished
from the purebteds, including many winners on eastern and western
tracks, also Arabian, Percheron, purebred horses, a notable stud of
Jacks and Jennets, and a large list of record-breaking Poland China and
Berkshire hogs and Holstein-Friesian cattle.'
The late Mr. Baldwin was always loth to part with portions of his
holdings, though the demand for small farms became quite insistent.
He sold off at various times small tracts, and in 1885 a portion of his
rancho, comprising ninety acres, was subdivided and is the present site
of the town of Monrovia, and since then the townsites of Sierra Madre,
El Monte and Arcadia have been founded. At present the Santa Anita
Rancho contains about thirty-five hundred acres in the vicinity of and
immediately surrounding the old Baldwin homestead. The railroad
station and postoffice of Santa Anita is on the Santa Fe Railway, and
five miles away is the city of Pasadena, and fourteen miles distant is
Los Angeles.
Anita M. Baldwin, the present proprietor, has much of the genius
of her father as a business woman, especially in the management and
direction of her live stock interests. She is also chairman of the Los
Angeles Branch of the American Red Star Animal Relief, and is spe-
cial representative and field inspector for southern California.
The late Elias Jackson Baldwin was born in Butler County, Ohio,
April 3, 1828, son of Elias Clark and Charlotte (Davis) Baldwin. His
father was bom in Butler County, Ohio, in 1802, the same year Ohio
was admitted to the Union, and the Baldwins were part of the first
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 141
pioneer settlement in that locality. The Baldwin family, seven in num-
ber, came to America in colonial times. The ancestrj' in remote genera-
tions is traced back to Baldwin de I'lsle, Count of Flanders, whose
daughter, Marianne Alatilda, married William of Normandy, afterward
William the Conqueror.
When Elias Jackson Baldwin was six years of age his parents
moved to a farm in northwestern Indiana, ten miles from South Bend.
He attended school there in winter and worked on a farm in summer.
For a year his parents lived at Crawfordsville, Indiana, in order to
give their children the benefit of higher education. At the age uf
twenty Elias Jackson Baldwin married a daughter of Joseph Unruh.
For a year he continued as a farmer, but in 1846, after accumulating
two thousand dollars through his genius as a horse trader, he estab-
lished a grocery store at Valparaiso, Indiana. He inherited his ad-
miration and skill in handling and judging horses from his father, and
from boyhood was skilled in trading and was an ardent participant in
lhat kingly sport of horse racing. It has been declared that he was
one of the best judges of horseflesh the country ever knew. From
Valparaiso Mr. Baldwin moved to New Buffalo, Michigan, a land then
of great promise because of its prospects as the Lake Michigan terminus
of some of the first transcontinental railway lines. He opened there
a hotel and general store and was soon enjoying a prosperous business.
He invested his profits in other enterprises. He built several canal boats
I'.nd loaded them with grain for St. Louis. After two jears he sold his
interests at New Buffalo and moved to Racine. Wisconsin, where he
liought a large hotel.
In March. 1853, having sold his property in Wisconsin, Elias Jack-
son Baldwin started for California. He bought a number of horses, fitted
out a train of four wagons and loaded them with the stock of goods
which he thought could be sold profitably at the western mines or at
some intermediate point. One wagon he had loaded with brandy, an-
other with tobacco and tea. As usual, he judged correctly, for on reach-
ing Salt Lake City he disposed of most of his cargo, and reinvested the
profits in a string of horses, which he brought with him to California.
After a brief stay at San Francisco, he went to Placerville, arriving in
that historic mining town August 10, 1853. He did some mining there,
but soon returned to San Francisco and bought the Pacific Temperance
House on Pacific and Battery streets. Within thirty days he sold out
at a profit of five thousand dollars. He then bought and fitted up the
Clinton House on Jackson street, and soon afterward sold that property.
About that time he met a Mr. Wormer, brother of a girl he brought
to California with his family, and they formed a partnership for the
manufacture of brick. After the firm dissolved Mr. Baldwin went to
Fort Point and superintended the making of brick for the government.
The brick he made is still to be seen at that fortress, and it was declared
he made the best product -ever seen in the west. After two years of this
he engaged in the real estate and stock and bond brokerage business,
but soon concentrated all his attention upon the stock and bond part of
his work.
At that time, during the '60s, San Francisco was going wild over
stock speculations, particularly on the Comstock mining stocks. When
Mr. Baldwin entered the arena his plunging soon made him a leader
among the speculators. He had as his attorney and confidential ad-
viser Reuben H. Lloyd, president of the Park Board. His operations
were on a large scale, and one particular day he was credited with "clean-
142 LOS ANGELES
ing up" over eight million dollars. He dealt heavily in Ophir, Crown
Point, Belcher, Savage and other stocks.
Never will the people of San Francisco forget the black Friday of
August 26, 1875, when it was whispered about in tremulous breath that
the Bank of California had closed its doors. At first men would not
believe the report, for the bank had long been considered the most stable
of all monetary institutions, and that it should collapse was no more
thought possible than that the skies should fall or the mountains be cast
into the seas. But the rumor was only too true, and on the following
afternoon of this day the panic fear that spread through the city was
further intensified by the death and was supposed suicide of the cashier,
by whose indiscretion, to use no harsher phrase, the catastrophe had been
brought about. The streets were filled with a surging multitude, a dense,
black mass of terrified and despairing men, for all were aware that a
dire calamity had befallen the commerce and industries of the city, the
state and the coast. It was truly a grewsome spectacle, such as never
before had been witnessed in this, our western metropolis, and never,
let us hope, shall be witnessed again. But let us hear what part Mr.
Baldwin played in the rehabilitation of the Bank of California, for his
was a leading part and by him and a few other public-spirited men was
averted a financial crisis such as would have paralyzed the entire com-
munity for many a year to come.
For two or three years he had been among its largest depositors,
having at one time $3,600,000 to his credit, bearing interest at nine per
cent. When the bank closed its doors he v/as its heaviest creditor, with
a balance of more than $2,000,000. He was then in the eastern states,
and the fact that the bank was paying such a large interest had long
caused him uneasiness. After largely reducing his account he telegraphed
for $400,000 more, but this he never received, for an hour later a mes-
sage from his attorney was placed in his hands advising him of the
bank's suspension. Li his answer at once dispatched by wire he said:
"Protect my interests, but do nothing to hurt Ralston." Thereupon he
immediately returned to San Francisco. R. H. Lloyd relates : "I asked
Ralston what was the actual condition of the bank, and he replied: 'You
and I have had several transactions, and I always told you the truth,
didn't I ?' I said : 'Yes, sir, I think you always did.' He then said :
'There is dollar for dollar in this bank for depositors if properly man-
aged, but very little for stockholders.' Believing that, I went to Sharon
and suggested the idea of subscribing money and putting the bank on
its feet. He eagerly seized the idea. We went to work at it, and when
Baldwin came back, he said: 'You did just right,' and took hold of it.
"Mr. Mills and his attorney wanted to put the bank in insolvency, but
we strenuously objected and succeeded in stopping it. A heroic effort
was made to repair the disaster, and I am doing no injustice to others
when I say that but for Mr. Baldwin's co-operation this effort would
have been in vain. Night after night he passed at the residence of Wil-
liam Sharon and, in company of his attorney Reuben H. Lloyd, and
Michael Reese, often working until daylight, surprised them at the task,
while devising means for bringing order out of the chaos.
"None others were present either among depositors or directors, and
by Mr. Baldwin and his colleagues was assumed the load of the bank's
responsibilities and obligations. Every argument was used, every in-
ducement was offered to secure the forbearance and aid of other capital-
ists to enlist their sympathies in a project which has been acknowledged
as among the greatest financial achievements of the age. Nor was it
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 143
until after a severe and protracted strain, a strain not only on their re-
iources, but on their vital powers, taxed as they were to the utmost limit
of human edurance, that their purpose was finally accomplished. At
length, however, it was accomplished, a fund being subscribed to reor-
ganize the bank to pay the depositors and to resume its business with a
new and sufficient capital. To this fund Baldwin and Sharon contributed
each $1,000,000, Lloyd $100,000, and others as means and inclination
dictated."
In bringing about this result it is the opinion of those best informed
in the matter that Mr. Baldwin has not received his due share of recogni-
tion. Not only did he, as the heaviest creditor of the bank, refrain from
attaching its property for the $2,000,000 at his credit, but risked another
$1,000,000 in the project for its rehabilitation, a project which by the
community at large was deemed well nigh impossible of achievement.
Nor did he stop here, but long continued to give the institution the benefit
of his moral support. On the very day when its doors were reopened,
while timid creditors were withdrawing their deposits, he placed on the
counter all the money he could carry, some $40,000 in double eagles, and
otherwise aided in restoring confidence among the faint hearted, many
of whom were prevented fron^ closing their accounts. Whatever may
have been the motives of other far-seeing men whose forbearance may
have been exercised and their responsibilities assumed to avert financial
ruin, or in the expectation of benefits which might accrue to them later,
no such motives can justly be attributed to Mr. Baldwin. Rather w-as he
actuated by sympathy for the fallen, by a becoming sentiment of pride,
a pride that would have shown to the world, to enemies as well as
friends, what a deed these men of California were capable of accomplish-
ing, a deed that had for its object the salvation of his adopted state, that
should prevent a collapse which would have shaken the community to its
center, a catastrophe which years would not have effaced.
In the early '70s he took an option on the corner of Market and
Powell streets, and in 1873 erected the Baldwin Hotel. The property
at that time was a sand hill, and he was roundly laughed at for what was
termed a foolhardy scheme. But, as was his custom in all his business
affairs, Mr. Baldwin paid no attention to what anybody said, but finished
his building. He invested three million dollars in the hotel and theater,
and the result was the most famous' building of its kind on the Pacific
Coast at that time. In the hotel he endeavored to supply San Francisco
with an urgent need for a family hotel, and he gave San Francisco one
of the first of the many institutions of a similar kind that have since been
founded. His theater was opened in 1875 with the production of Richard
III, by Harry Sullivan, the cast including such latter day stage celebri-
ties as Louis James and James O'Neill. This building was destroyed in
November, 1898, by fire, and Mr. Baldwin himself had a narrow escape
from death. Later he sold the property, but retained possession of the
Market street property east of the hotel, upon which the Baldwin Annex
stood until the great fire of 1906. The hotel property was the subject
of one of Mr. Baldwin's most famous law suits. He was never known
to compromise any litigation, but always fought through to the bitter
end. In the case of the hotel property he won a clear title after the
suit was carried through all the courts until 1892.
A great degree of the fame associated w-ith his name was due to his
operations on the turf. It was during an eastern trip that he first entered
the racing arena in a substantial way, and in the years that followed he
became one of the most famous and certainly the most unique and spec-
144 LOS ANGELES
tacular turf operator in recent history. He was one of the few who
really profited by his operations, and for a number of years the winnings
of his horses in purses amounted to about a hundred thousand dollars
annually. While in the east he went to Saratoga with a friend and took
a liking to the horse Grinstead, who by no means was a favorite at the
track. But he knew horses better than most men and wagered heavily
in the auction pools. There was no book-making in those days. He won
a large amount of money and promptly bought the horse. Grinstead
afterward became the sire of many famous racers. Mr. Baldwin did
likewise with the horse Rutherford, and shipped his two purchases to
the west. Then he went into the racing business in real earnest. A few
years later he invaded the east with a string of horses and was laughed
at for his pains. Four times were the Baldwin colors first at the wire in
the classic American Derby, an achievement standing alone in the annals
of the turf, no other ranch or breeder boasting of even two winners.
The Baldwin horses captured fifteen of the twenty-five races participated
in at Saratoga. The blood of some of those famous thoroughbred win-
ners is still on the Santa Anita Rancho, and its present owner is doing
much to perpetuate the fame of the achievements of her honored father.
When Mr. Baldwin completed the Santa Anita race course on his own
]5roperty he sold off a number of his racing horses, as he did not believe
an owner should race his horses on his own track. That was character-
istic of the man. He played every game he entered vehemently, but
always fairly.
Mr. Baldwin owned the Tallac property at the world's famous re-
sort. Lake Tahoe, and since his death the Tallac Hotel has been com-
pleted in the midst of a picturesque woodland of a thousand acres. He
also owned the Oakwood Hotel at Arcadia, in the highlands of Los
Angeles County, and owned much valuable business and residence prop-
erty both in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Mr. Baldwin married four times. By his first wife he had two
daughters, one of whom died in infancy, and the other married Mr.
Harold, son of a prominent Philadelphia physician. For his second wife
he married Miss Cochrane, of New Orleans. His third wife, mother of
Miss Anita Baldwin, her only child, was Jane Virginia Dexter, daughter
of Colonel Peter A. and Mary Ann (Bryan) Dexter. Mary Ann Bryan
was of famous Irish lineage, going back to the noted Brian Boru. For
his fourth wife Mr. Baldwin married Lillie C. Bennett, whose father
was an architect.
A concise and happy summan- of Mr. Baldwin's life career cannot
be better expressed than in the following quotation :
The histor}' of California bears record of no more picturesque, albeit
no more useful, energetic and praiseworthy character than Elias Jackson
(Lucky) Baldwin. His career graces California's annals with a whirl-
wind of spectacular, original and daring exploits, unique and resultful
expeditions into the world of high finance, intermingled with good deeds
antl acts of kindness toward others, lie gave California gratuitous ad-
vertisement when such advertisement was needed and could be obtained
perhaps in no other way. He made several fortunes and lost them, but
when he died a millionaire it was truthfully said of him that he came
by it all honestly — that he "filched from no man's store."
Elias Jackson Baldwin contributed to the annals of California many
stirring chapters, and the memon- of his constructive genius and daring
expeditions into the field of development is part of the record of a unique
and brilliant career. Unto himself he lived, taking little counsel of
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 145
others ; certain in his judgment and quick in action. When the angel of
death came to him on March 1, 1909, at his Santa Anita Rancho and
closed the eyes of this wonderful character in his last sleep, it was at
the close of a life long in years and as eventful as any in the state's
history.
Hon. Benjamin W. Hahn. As a lawyer who has devoted himself
to his professional duties in southern California nearly thirty years, the
record of Benjamin W. Hahn is easily one of the most important in
the annals of the local bar. He has handled many large and important
interests, especially as a corporation lawyer, but like many other lawyers
who have found satisfaction and success in their profession his political
and public career is brief.
Mr. Hahn was born in Chicago, Illmois, August 28, 1868, son of
Samuel and Barbara Hahn. His father went to Chicago in early life
and for many years followed his trade as a carpenter and builder. Ben-
jamin W. Hahn attended the public schools in his native city. He was in
his nineteenth year when he came to California in 1887, locating at
Pasadena, and later entering as a student the law offices of Metcalf &
McLaghlan. On December 24, 1895, he was admitted to the Supreme
Court of California and to the United States Supreme Court February
26, 1900. Much of his practice in later years has been in courts of
federal jurisdiction, including the United States Supreme Court. Mr.
Hahn first began practice at Pasadena, and after a year or so became
associated with his brother Edwin Hahn under the firm name of Hahn
& Hahn. This is now one of the chief firms of corporation lawyers in
the west. They handle almost exclusively a corporation and probate
practice,
Mr. Benjamin Hahn has charge of the Los Angeles office, located
in the Central Building at Sixth and Main streets. Mr. Hahn main-
tains a large private law library in those offices. His brother Edwin
has charge of the Pasadena office in the Boston Building. This is the
oldest firm in Los Angeles county.
Mr. Hahn has always been a republican, and on that ticket was
chosen to his only important office in 1902, when elected state senator
from the 36th District. Because of his recognized attainments as a
lawyer he was accepted into the leadership of the Senate and served
as a member of the committee on finance, judiciary, corporations, banks
and banking and code revision. At different times he has used an influ-
ence in behalf of many civic movements in his home city of Pasadena.
He founded the Pasadena Daily News, now one of the leading papers
of that city, now consolidated with the Star News of Pasadena. He is
a director of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Long Beach and
organized that bank. He is a life member of the B. P. O. E., Silver
Trowel Lodge of Los Angeles No. 415, a thirty-second degree Scottish
Rite Mason, belonging to Masonic bodies of Los Angeles, is author of
Halin's Corporate Parliamentary Rules, the only work on that subject
ever published, and is a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Asso-
ciation.
At San Bernardino, November 9, 1892, he married Miss Grace Vir-
ginia Gahr, daughter of R. P. Gahr, a well and favorably known citizen
of San Bernardino. Mr. and Mrs. Hahn have one son, Herbert L., who
was a lieutenant in the First Infantry of the United States. He was
the Pacific Coast tennis star of Leland Stanford University, graduating
from that institution in 1916, with the A. B. degree. He was admitted
146 LOS ANGELES
to the bar of California in May, 1917, and is now in the Pasadena office.
The favorite pursuit of Mr. Hahn is flower cultivation. He has a
twenty acre ranch, where he resides, and has several acres devoted to
dahlias, having in two years created five hundred varieties of that flower,
some of them measuring nine inches in diameter and representing roses.
On this ranch he also has the largest grape arbor in the world. He
owns his own water and pumping plant. This beautiful estate is located
one-half mile east of the city limits of Pasadena in the foothills.
Rev. Clement Molony was born at Los Angeles, April 12, 1874,
son of Richard and Nellie Molony. His early education was ob-
tained in the public schools and St. Vincent's College. In 1892 he entered
Kenrick Seminary at St. Louis, Missouri, where he completed his course
in theology, and returning to Los Angeles, was ordained priest in St. Vi-
biana's Cathedral by the late Archbishop Montgomery on April 19, 1897.
He was the bishop's secretary until 1903, when he was assigned to a
work which afforded an opportunity for the full exercise of his energy
and constructiveness as a church builder, and in the mature accom-
plishments thereof he still remains as pastor of St. Agnes' Catholic
church.
Father Molony organized St. Agnes' parish August 1, 1903. Prior
to that portions of St. Paul's parish had been under the jurisdiction of
St. Agnes' and his parish originally comprised all of the present par-
ishes of St. Cecilia, St. Michael, Inglewood aVid Hyde Park.
Father Molony began his work in a temporary church building dedi-
cated October 4, 1903. Ground was broken for the present magnificent
granite church on the corner of West Adams street and Vermont avenue
December 8, 1905. The cornerstone was laid by the late Bishop Conaty
on the feast of St. Agnes, January 21, 1906. The edifice was completed
and dedicated Thank,sgiving Day, 1907. The marble altars of the church
were consecrated by Bishop Cantwell on the feast of St. Agnes in 1918,
and the following Sunday the bishop blessed the pipe organ, which is the
finest instrument in any of the Catholic churches of Los Angeles. Both
the main altar and the pipe organ were offerings of Mrs. Emeline H.
Childs of Los Angeles, who has been the greatest benefactor not only
of St. Agnes' church but of every Catholic institution and most of the
Catholic churches in the city.
With the growth of the parish there came the necessity of a pa-
rochial school, which was blessed by the late Bishop Conaty on the first
Sunday of October, 1914. The school, which is accredited to the State
University, is under the direction of sixteen sisters of the Congregation
of the Holy Cross from Notre Dame, Indiana. This school has all the
grammar grades, also a full course of high school instruction and a
commercial curriculum. These different grades provide the educational
needs for five hundred pupils.
Mrs. M.\rgaret Fr.vnces Slusher. Since the field of big business
management was first opened to women many of the representatives of
this sex have attained distinction, proving that in all requirements they
are equal to the masculine mind and efficiency. Los Angeles has long
been distinguished in this connection, and among the more prominent
business women of the city is Mrs. Margaret Frances Slusher, pro-
prietress of one of Los Angeles' largest laundries. For twenty years
she has devoted her excellent talents to this line of endeavor, and has
maintained throughout the entire period a high standard of business
C/ ^J^u^^M^'^y^jsA^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 147
ethics. She is a woman of marked activity, and her career in a number
of ways has been a remarkable and interesting one.
Mrs. Slusher was born at Livermore, California, May 9, 1879, a
daughter of J. C. and Mary Ellen (Langenkamp) Campbell, the former
a native of Virginia, and for years the owner of a large plantation near
Wheeling, West Virginia, and the latter born at Springfield, Illinois.
One of her sisters, Mrs. Clara Hall, is the manager of a successful tea
room, "The Tea Cup," at San Francisco ; another sister, Mrs. James E.
Morgan, is the wife of a retired capitalist of Los Angeles; a brother,
George W. Campbell, is engaged in business in Paris, France; a cousin,
Walter J. Bartinett, is a wealthy business man of San Francisco, and
formerly was vice president of the Gould Railway System; and a niece,
Miss Sadie Morgan, is in charge of a Los Angeles dancing academy.
Mrs. Slusher began her career at an early age, leaving home at the
age of twelve years to make her own way and create her own oppor-
tunities. Circumstances may in a measure develop an individual, but
unless there is an underlying stability of character, combined with native
ability and a determination to make the most of whatever opportunities
life affords, all the circumstances in the world, no matter how advan-
tageous, will not produce a person of whom associates can be proud. In
many instances circumstances crush out ambition, render ineffective
what might otherwise be well-sustained effort. In the case of Mrs.
Slusher circumstances were such that at the age of fifteen years she
became interested in the laundry business, and began to work at the old
Excelsior Laundry. She had attended the public schools of Los Angeles
and later, when she realized the necessity of further training, took a
course at and graduated from the Bromberger Business College. At the
Excelsior she was rapidly promoted until given charge of several de-
partments, but it was her constant and unfaltering ambition to become
proprietress of an establishment of her own, where she could work out
her ideas and plans, and an opportunity for the realization of her aims
came in 1899, in which year she founded her present business, h'rom
the start she made a success of her venture, but it was not until March
7, 1907, that her present laundry was completed and occupied.
Mrs. Slusher devoted her activities to the building up of an exclu-
sive patronage, and at the time of the entrance of the L'nited States into
the great war her business consisted chiefly in handling the elite work of
the city, delivery being made by private cars. The elect of the social
world, prominent actresses and opera singers, formed the principal part
of her customers, and in handling this kind of lingerie Mrs. Slusher did
a business approximating some $4,000 per week. Her quick perception
told her at the outset of this country's participation in the conflict that
the opportunity to do big business was at hand, and without assistance
she contrived to secure contracts for all the army and navy work at
San Pedro, Fort McArthur and the Naval Reserve. Immediately the
volume of business done jumped to huge proportions, and in 1918 alone
she did $130,000 worth of Unite'd States government business. What an
undertaking she assumed may be imagined when it is stated that at one
time she had for laundering in her place of business 182,000 pair of
SOX, for which the Red Cross did the darning; 10,000 suits of khaki and
22,000 blankets.
In the landing of the above-mentioned contracts Mrs. Slusher had
stolen a march on other laundries, managed by men. who endeavored
to make up for their delinquency and tardiness in action by acquiring
148 LOS ANGELES
control of her business. She was deluged with offers to buy her plant,
but her price of $150,000 was beyond what the}- desired to pay, and they
accordingly adopted tactics designed to put her out of busmess. They
found, however, that Mrs. Slusher's capabilities included a marked ten-
dency to grimly hold on to what she had worked so hard and fairly to
obtain and to determinedly and skillfully fight back, with the result that
the controversy led to considerable publicity, terminating in the publish-
ing of the valiant litle woman's picture in the leading newspapers of
the city, April 17, 1919. The reaction was immediate, Mrs. Slusher re-
ceiving bushels of letters of sympathy and congratulation and being
forced to yield to innumerable interviews. The results, on the whole,
were satisfactory, for while the notoriety was unpleasant, she was able
to view the matter in a philosophic light in that hers was the victory
and that the advertising thus gained brought her much additional
business.
Mrs. Slusher gives much of the credit for her success to the fact
that she has been able to select good employes. She built her own
buildings, which are thoroughly equipped with their own electric plant,
paint shop and water system, and the entire plant is complete and mod-
ern in every appointment. She has invested her earnings sensibly and
practically, and is the owner of several orange groves, one being at
Santa Ana, and another of forty-five acres being located at Santa Fe
Springs, where she resides in a large and imposing modern home. In
addition she owns much desirable city property at Los Angeles, all ob-
tained through her own efforts. Not only is she a splendid business
woman, but is also possessed of marked intellectual attainments and has
had considerable successful experience as a newspaper woman. She is
active in club life of the city and has various important connections in
this direction.
On July 23, 1902, Mrs. Slusher marrfed Silas F. Slusher, a native
of Floyd county, Virginia, but now of Los Angeles. They have no
children.
Charles Hulbert Toll. Thirty-five years of his business life Mr.
Toll has spent in Los Angeles. He has achieved prominence in financial
circles and for a number of years has been identified with the oldest and
largest savings bank in Southern California, the Security Trust & Sav-
ings Bank, of which he is a vice-president and a director. He is also a
director of the Security National Bank, which is owned by the stock-
holders of the Security-Trust & Savings Bank.
Mr. Toll was born at Clinton, Iowa, November 24, 1858, a son of
Hon. Charles Hulbert and Elizabeth (Lusk) Toll. His parents were
both natives of New York state. His father was an Iowa pioneer and
one of the men who really built up and developed Clinton as a city. He
was a manufacturer there, also held the office of postmaster, and repre-
sented his district in the State Legislature. At the time of the Civil
war he enlisted in the Tenth Iowa Infantry, and was in service until the
close of hostilities. He was promoted to the rank of major and had
charge of the Commissary Department. Major Toll spent his last two
years in California and died in Los Angeles.
Charles H. Toll, the youngest of five children, grew up in Qinton,
Iowa, acquired a public school education and finished in Cornell Col-
lege at Mount Vernon, Iowa. For a time he was a clerk in the Clinton
postoffice, later was deputy clerk of courts of Clinton county. Mr. Toll
moved to Los Angeles in 1885. He was credit man for several large
<i^
^2^Sw^3f6./|!^5;?;C^^/;^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 149
firms of the city and gradually became identified with business and
finance in an increasing scope, and as a banker has met with accustomed
success and is a recognized power in the local money market.
Mr. Toll was elected without opposition and served as a member
of the City Council of Los Angeles from 1896 to 1900. He is a repub-
lican, a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce, and the Automobile Club of Southern California.
He and his wife are both prominent socially. Mrs. Toll was educated
in the Oakland High School and is now president of the Grammar School
Board of Glendale and first vice-president of the Ebell Club of Los
Angeles.
Mr. Toll was one of the sponsors of Mr. McGroarty's Mission Play
during its successful season at San Gabriel, ending May 4, 1919.
Mr. Toll married September 4, 1901, Miss Eleanor M. Joy, of Los
Angeles. Their children, all natives of Los Angeles, are Charles Hul-
bert, Jr., Gerald Sidney, Maynard Joy and Carroll Costello. Charles
H., Jr., is a graduate of the Glendale High School, class of February,
1919, and Gerald S. is a member of the graduating class of February,
1920, in the same school, each graduating in their sixteenth year. The
family home is at Glendale.
St. Thomas the Apostle Church, at West Pico and Mariposa
Boulevard, is one of the strong and flourishing parishes that exemplify
the extension and increasing power of the Catholic church in keeping
with the general development and expansion of Los Angeles itself.
The parish was established August 1, 1903, by the Rt. Rev. Thomas
J. Conaty. The new parish comprised that portion of the city between
Hoover, Washington, West 9th and City Limits, and was placed under
the charge of the Rev. John J. Clifford as its pastor.
The church, built after the style of the Old Missions of California,
with a touch of the Fourteenth Century Spanish Renaissance architec-
ture, was completed for worship December 25, 1904, and was dedicated
February 19, 1905. Since then the buildings of the parish have been
supplemented by a school and rectory.
The first and only pastor of this parish, Rev. John J. Chflford, was
born in County Kerry, Ireland, December 22, 1871, a son of James and
Mary (Houlihan) Clifford. He was educated in the Christian Broth-
ers College until the age of fifteen, then in Carlow College, from which
he graduated in 1894, and at the same time received his diploma from
the Royal University of. Ireland. As he was destined for work in the
American field he then came to this country and finished his studies in
the Catholic University at Washington, where he was ordained a priest
in 1895.
Father Cliflford was stationed as assistant pastor of the Cathedral
of Los Angeles until August 1, 1903, when he was made pastor of St.
Thomas the Apostle church. His work has not been entirely confined
within his own parish. He was one of the founders of the Brown-
son House, which has done wonderful work for the poor of Los An-
geles, and is chaplain of the Newman Club of the Los Angeles State
Normal School. He is also a Knight of Columbus and a member of
the Young Men's Institute.
Frank Hervey Pettingell, who in 1919 enjoyed the honor of his
fifth consecutive term as president of the Los Angeles Stock Exchange,
has been in the stock and bond business for over a quarter of a century
and has been a resident of Los Angeles since 1912.
150 LOS ANGELES
Mr. Pettingell represents some of the oldest and most prominent
colonial American families, and for many years has been deeply inter-
ested in genealogical, patriotic, historical and various civic and social
institutions.
He was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, January 2, 1868, and
is in the eighth generation of the American family of Pettingell. Its
fomider was Richard Pettingell, who was born in 1620 in England,
came to America about 1640 and was made a freeman at Salem, Massa-
chusetts, June 2, 1641. Later he settled at Newbury and died there in
1695. He married Joanna Ingersoll, who was born about 1625, and died
several years before her husband. The second generation was repre-
sented by Matthew Pettingell, born in 1648 and died about 1714. He
lived at Newbury and was a felt maker. Nathaniel Pettingell, of the
third generation, was born January 21, 1675-6, at Newbury, and also
followed the trade of felt maker at that place. Cutting Pettingell, of
the fourth generation, whose descendants are eligible to membership in
the Society of Colonial Wars, was born January 17, 1721-2, and died in
1793. He was a fisherman and coaster, and served as a private in the
train band of Colonel John Greenleaf's Company. He was one of the
petitioners for the founding of the old South Church at Newbury.
Josiah Pettingell, of the fifth generation, was born in 1753, in Newbiiry-
port, and died there June 30, 1826. He was the revolutionary ancestor.
He was a fisherman, and was in Captain Stephen Kent's Company,
raised for coast defense in Essex county, Massachusetts, in November
and December, 1775. Cutting Pettingell, of the sixth generation, was
born in May, 1785, and died at Newburyport September 1, 1865, was
in the War of 1812 as a member of Captain John Woodwell's Company,
Lieutenant-Colonel Ebenezer Hale's Regiment, Second Brigade, Second
Division, service at Newbury, between September 30 and October 4,
1814. Nathaniel Henry Pettingell, father of the Los Angeles citizen,
was born at Newbury September 11, 1835, and died at Newmarket, New
Hampshire, November 12, 1874. September 6, 1863, he married Mary
Anna Feltch. She w^as in the seventh generation from Henry Felch,
who was born about 1590 and came to Massachusetts about 1640. The
successive generations of the Felch family w«re : Henry ; Henry ; Dr.
Daniel; Samuel; Jacob: Joseph Harris, who was born in 1804 and was
father of Mary Anna Feltch, who was born at Newbury September 10,
1843, and died at Newburyport August 6, 1894.
Frank Hervey Pettingell was educated in the public schools of his
native city and in 1889 left Massachusetts and removed to Colorado
Springs, Colorado, where for about three years he was connected with
the First National Bank of that city. Since 1892 he has been engaged
in the stock and bond business. In 1895-96, while a resident of Colo-
rado Springs, he was elected vice president and subsequently president
of the Colorado Mining Stock Exchange of Denver, then an organiza-
tion of considerable importance. He became a charter member in 1894
and is still a member of the Colorado Springs Mining Stock Association.
During 1904-05, Mr. Pettingell maintained an offtce on Wall street in
New York City. He came to Los Angeles in December, 1912, and has
almost continuously held the honorary ofifiice of president of the Stock
Exchange.
January 19, 1898, at Independence, Missouri, he married Mary
Agnes Morgan, daughter of Robert K. and Mary (Smith) Morgan.
She was born at Independence, Missouri, February 27, 1876. The two
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 151
children of that union are Frank Hervey, Jr., born November. 27, 1898,
at Colorado Springs; and Mary Agnes, born January 27, 1901, at De-
troit, Michigan.
At Denver, Colorado, September 5, 1905, Mr. Pettingell married for
his second wife Medora Anna Wilson, daughter of John Mitchell and
Rosabel (Cantril) Wilson. She was born at Denver February 27, 1881.
Mr. Pettingell is governor of the Society of Colonial Wars in the
state of California ; first vice president and a life member of the Sons
of the Revolution in the state of California; first vice president, Cali-
fornia Genealogical Society of San Francisco ; honorary vice president
of the General National Society Americans of Royal Descent; senior
vice president. National Mining and Stock Brokers' Association ; was
president in 1915 of the International Congress of Genealogy at San
Francisco; and a suretie of the Baronial Order of Runnemede (de-
scendants of the Sureties of the Magna Charta, 1215 A. D.) of Phila-
delphia. He is also a member of ihe^ Board of Library Directors of Los
Angeles; Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachu-
setts ; Society, Sons of the Revolution in the Commonwealth of Massa-
chusetts ; Massachusetts Society, Sons of the American Revolution ;
New England Historic Genealogical Society of Massachusetts ; Society
for the Preservation of New England Antiquities of Massachusetts ; So-
ciety of the War of 1812 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ; So-
ciety of Old Plymouth Colony Descendants ; New Hampshire Historical
Society at Concord ; life member. Historical Society of Old Newbur}',
at Newburyport ; Order of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe of Bal-
timore : member of the Paul Jones Club at Portsmo'uth, New Hamp-
shire ; the Pike Family Association of America ; Chevalier Commander
for California, Order of Lafayette ; charter member, Lafayette Society
of California ; honorary life member, St. Ananias Club of Topeka, Kan-
sas ; member of the California Club of Los Angeles, and member of the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks No. 99, Los Angeles, Cali-
fornia.
Thomas Higgins. In several of the greatest mining districts of
the Southwest Thomas Higgins was the pioneer operator. Mr. Higgins
is a man ofvhalf a century of experience, has been through all the ups
and downs of the profession, and some years ago he came to Los Angeles
to invest his means, and is owner of some of the city's most conspicuous
property.
Mr. Higgins was born at Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland. July
12, 1844, a son of Patrick Higgins. Up to the age of fourteen he attended
national schools and then contented himself with the quiet routine of
his father's farm until he came to America. After coming to this country
he lived in Troy, New York, and was employed in iron works a short
time. He then invaded the wilderness of the middle west and became
a woodsman and lumberman at Mosinee, Wisconsin. Two years later
he went south along the lower Mississippi, and for several years was
foreman in the construction of river levees. Later he worked on con-
struction for the Iron Mountain Railway.
The next change in scene and occupation took him to the far north-
west, and through the territories of Washington and Oregon he prospected
for gold until the Indians became so troublesome as to drive him out.
Going to San Francisco he continued his journeys through the locality
known as Tombstone, Arizona, and was probably one of the first white
152 LOS ANGELES
men to prospect in that mining district. Sometime later he went on to
the Mule Pass Mountains, close to the Mexican line, where Bisbee is
now located, and was also one of the pioneers in that locality. In these
and other districts of Arizona Mr. Higgins continued his work as a
miner and mine developer until long after his fortune had been assured.
He still retains extensive interests at Bisbee, but since 1900 has been a
resident of Los Angeles.
At Los Angeles and vicinity he has invested heavily in real estate
and other properties. In 1910 he erected the ten story office building,
120x160 feet, at the corner of Second and Main streets, known as the
Higgins Building. In 1914 he organized the Higgins Estate, and became
its president. Mr. Higgins has never married, and has generously dis-
pensed his means for various charitable causes and institutions. He is
a member of the Catholic church and is a republican in politics.
Robert Arnold Rowan, whose sudden death July 25, 1918, brought
a general sense of bereavement and loss to the entire city and the
many friends and business associates all over California, was identified
as a responsible factor with that part of Los Angeles development which
has resulted in a lofty sky-line and the creation of great and end'iring
edifices in the business district. As a real estate owner, developer and
financier he has exemplified and extended the splendid talents he in-
herited from his late father, George D. Rowan, one of the pioneers in
Los Angeles real estate development. Of his father more is said on
other pages.
Robert A. Rowan was born in Chicago, Illinois, August 20, 1875,
and a year later his parents came to California. He attended public
schools at Pasadena and in 1893, at the age of eighteen, gave up his
school work to begin his business career. For several years his home
was in New York City, and his first employment there was with Ward
& Huntington, exporters of hardware to South America. In 1894 he
entered business for himself as a merchandise broker.
In 1897 Mr. Rowan entered the real estate business in Los Angeles.
In that field his career has presented some of the most remarkable suc-
cesses in the business annals of Los Angeles. From 1898 to 1901 he
was associated with William May Garland. In 1901 he became an in-
dependent operator, and in 1905, with several of his brothers, organized
the firm of R. A. Rowan & Company, of which he was president at
the iime of his death.
R. A. Rowan & Company is an organization of expert men, and
while capable of highly specialized work it has not confined itself to
one restricted field. Its operations have included both residrntial tracts
and business property, though it is in the downtown district that the
most important achievements are credited to the company.
Mr. Rowan was associated with A. C. Bilicke in organizing the
Alexandria Hotel Company and the construction of the Alexandria
Hotel. Mr. Rowan was secretary and treasurer of that company. The
Alexandria Hotel is a peer of the many magnificent establishments of
the kind in America, and is one of the institutions that have served to
spread the fair fame of Los Angeles abroad. Mr. Rowan and associates
also erected the Security Building, the Merchants National Bank Build-
ing, the Title Insurance Building, and the Title Guarantee Building.
These solid fireproof structures have not only served to meet the grow-
ing demands of Los Angeles commercial life, but through their archi-
tecture are peculiarly appropriate to the growing ideals of a communit)'
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 153
where the spirit of beauty joins hands with utiHtarianism. Among vari-
ous residence districts into which the Rowan Company has extended its
activities should be mentioned Windsor Square district of approximately
two hundred acres.
At the time of his death Mr. Rowan was credited with being one
of the largest individual property owners in Los Angeles. He was also
a stockholder, and director in a number of business concerns. His name
was usually found in connection with every large public movement of the
city and as a member of its leading commercial and civic organizations.
He belonged to the Los Angeles Athletic Club, which he had served as
president, to the Los Angeles Realty Board, the California Club, Jona-
than Club, Los Angeles Country Club, San Gabriel Valley Country Club
and Pasadena Country Club.
February 28, 1903, at Los Angeles, Mr. Rowan married Laura
Schwarz, daughter of Louis Schwarz, a pioneer Los Angeles business
man. tour young children were left to mourn their father's death, the
oldest thirteen and the youngest six years. Their names are Lorraine,
George D. and Robert A., Jr., twins, and Louis.
The death of such a man naturally called forth expressions of esteem
from all his old friends and associates, and a significant part of tnese
tributes which cannot be quoted in detail was the emphasis they placed
not upon his spectacular financial success, but the bigness and nobility
of his nature and the qualities of heart and mind that dominated him and
made him one of the city's master builders. He was called "the best of
sons, of husbands, of brothers, of fathers and of friends," and one who
knew him well said: "His integrity, his energy, his initiative and his
lack of all malignity even towards those who imposed on him made him
a splendid type of the American."
Some of the special qualities that stood out in his life were described
in one of the local papers as follows : "To write of Mr. Rowan is to
write of the building of the city. For while it was the noble traits of his
character that he impressed more deeply on the community than any of
his great material achievements, it was Mr. Rowan who really made Los
Angeles a city in its structures.
"When the father died in 1903 it was found that all of his large prop-
erty had been left to Mrs. Rowan and "Bob' as trustees. Since then Mr
Rowan administered the estate, which is still intact and under his skill is
quintupled in value. His old friends describe Mr. Rowan as a bom
business man. He took to business naturally and soon left school to
assist his father.
"His essentially notable traits were amiability, accompanied by po-
tency and capacity. He was never known to say an ill word of anyone.
Often he would be deceived in men, in that those he took close to his
regard would disappoint him or impose on him and for the moment he
would show a little irritation, but immediately he would offer excuses
for them and never in his entire career was he ever found seeking revenge
or trying to get even, no matter what injury had been done him. Never
was there any pettiness, any shadow of maliciousness in word or deed of
'Bob' Rowan. He was too big souled, too immersed in big affairs, too
loyal to the city he loved to be capable of smallness. His soul was big
with its power for good, but there was no place in his being for the
little. In his hands were the affairs, the vital affairs, of innumerable
people; in no instance was there any wavering, any defect of integrity
coupled with ability that imperiled one penny."
154 LOS ANGELES
John Farrell Powers. Los Angeles has been the home of many
well-known former Chicagoans. One of the more recent additions from
that source is John Farrell Powers. Mr. Powers in a few years has
done much to increase the prestige and elevate the standards of Pacific
Coast baseball. He came to Los Angeles not like his fellow Chicagoan,
A. G. Spalding, long after the climax of his career, but in the fullness of
his enthusiasm and power as a baseball promoter, and is known all up
and down the coast as one of the controlling owners of the Los Angeles
Baseball Club.
Mr. Powers was born in Chicago March 14, 1881, a son of John
and Mary (Farrell) Powers. His father was born in Ireland and was
well educated for the demands of an executive career. For many years
he served as a member of the City Council of Chicago, and the gifts of
humor and e.xecutive ability which distinguished him have been freely
endowed upon John Farrell Powers.
The latter was educated in St. Patrick's School in Chicago and
from there entered St. Ignatius College, where he became verj' much
interested in athletic sports. He was an enthusiastic baseball player, and
even while there showed special ability in managing school athletics.
Later he entered Notre Dame University, and while there was as much
a factor in the promotion of college sports as he had been at St. Ignatius.
In Notre Dame he pursued a civil engineering course, but all the time
he could spare from his studies he devoted to the betterment of Notre
Dame's baseball nine, which for years has had a high reputation among
college and university nines of the middle west.
After leaving Notre Dame Mr. Powers was for four years a civil
engineer with the Illinois Tunnel Company, and assisted in constructing
the tunnel under the Chicago River. In 1904 he gave up a good posi-
tion with that company to enter business for himself and located at Dan-
ville, Illinois, where he became member of the firm of Powers & Supple
Company, dealers in general building material. They soon had an ex-
tensive business, both wholesale and retail. As a business man of that
Illinois city Mr. Powers lost no opportunity to support and build up a
good baseball club. In 1907 he became owner and president of the Dan-
ville Club. Danville belonged to what was then one of the best organi-
zations of minors in the middle west, the Three I League, embracing
a number of the larger cities of the three states of Illinois, Indiana and
Iowa. For three years Mr. Powers was at the head of the Danville or-
ganization, and he put his club among the leaders of the league. In 1910
Danville was a contender for the pennant to the very last, and it was
only after a hard-fought contest in three games that the title went to
another club.
In 1910 Mr. Powers removed to Los Angeles, where he found a
city, a climate and a spirit of enterprise that thoroughly appealed to
him. He acquired some valuable real estate in the city, and on one of
these properties erected one of the most beautiful homes in southern
California. Fie also became financially interested in a number of busi-
ness projects, but the interests which make him best known to the public
at large are baseball. February 2, 1915, he acquired the controlling in-
terest in the Los Angeles Baseball Club, was elected president, becoming
associated with Tom Darmody, one of the' brainiest men in baseball. It
was largely this combination that revived the confidence and enthusiasm
of the supporting public in the Los Angeles organization, and under
its leadership the national pasttime on the coast has made larger strides
than ever before.
JOHN F. POWERS
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 155
Mr. Powers is a member of the Chicago Athletic Ckib, Los Angeles
Athletic Club, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Knights
of Columbus. June 26, 1905, he married Miss Nelle Kelly of Danville,
Illinois. They have one child, Michael Kelly Powers.
General P.\trick H. Barry is governor of the Soldiers' Home at
Sawtelle. He was appointed in December, 1912, taking up his duties
January 17, 1913, as acting governor, and since the first of March, 1913,
he has been governor of this institution.
While a lover of California and occupied in the congenial duties
of supervising an institution for the welfare of his fellow comrades who
saw active service in the Civil war. General Barry spent the greater
part of his life in the middle west and in the far east. He was born in
County Cork, Ireland, August 23, 1844, and as a boy was brought to
the United States by his parents, who lived in Boston. He had all the
enthusiasm and patriotism of the typical Irishman, and at the out-
break of the Civil war attempted to enlist in the army, but was rejected
on account of age. He determined to become a soldier, and leaving home
and going to a locality where he was unknown he was accepted as a
private in Company E of the Sixty-third New York Regiment in Septem-
ber, 1861. Pie had just past his seventeenth birthday. The Sixty-third
New York was part of Meagher's Irish Brigade, one of the hardest
fighting and most brilliant organizations in the Union army. With the
Sixty-third New York General Barry participated in the siege of York-
town, the battles of Fair Oaks, Gaines' Mills, Bottom's Ridge, Savage
Station, Cold Harbor, Malvern Hill, Second Bull Run and Antietam.
At Antietam he was wounded in the ankle and discharged. He recovered
and re-enlisted July 2, 1863, in Company A, 12th Massachusetts In-
fantry. With this regiment he was a participant at Mine Run, the Wild-
erness, Laurel Hill, Spottyslvania Court House, Bowling Green, second
battle of Cold Harbor and Petersburg. The concluding scenes he saw
as a member of the Thirty-ninth Massachusetts, to which he had been
transferred. He was in the thick of the fighting at the famous Crater
before Richmond. There he displayed that heroism which is the basis
of many of the citations and medals and lienors which are mentioned
in the present great war. Wliile attempting to save a comrade from a
building that had been set on fire he was horribly burned about the face,
but refused to go to the Field Hospital, and a few moments later his
right arm was shattered by the fragments of a bursting shell. This
wound necessitated amputation above the elbow and he came home from
the war with one arm in his sleeve, yet in spite of this handicap he proved-
himself no mean competitor in the practical afifairs and business of life.
July 2, 1865, the second anniversary of his re-enlistment in the army,
he married in Boston Miss Mary Monahan, a native of Ireland. They
lived in and near Boston until the spring of 1880, when they sought the
new lands of the middle west. General Barry took a homestead and tim-
ber claim in Wheeler county, Nebraska, and lived there to endure all the
hardships of pioneer experience. In 1882 he moved to another locality
in Greeley county, to a tract sold to settlers by the Irish Catholic Asso-
ciation. General Barry lived there until 1904, and became highly pros-
perous as a farmer and stock breeder. On leaving the farm he moved
to Greeley Center, where his wife died November 25, 1907.
Of his active connection with military affairs since the Civil war it
is best to rely upon an article written and published in the Twentieth
Century Farmer of Omaha in 1911. Quoting from this article: "Wlien
156 LOS ANGELES
Silas A. Holcomb was elected governor of Nebraska he made Patrick
H. Barry adjutant general of the Nebraska National Guard. General
Barry immediately took up the seemingly hopeless task of making the
Nebraska National Guard an effective force. Working night and day
he whipped it into some semblance of a fighting force, and thus it was
that when President McKinley called for troops in the Spanish-Ameri-
can war the Nebraska guardsmen were not only among the first to re-
spond, but were among the best drilled, best equipped and best discip-
lined volunteer troops sent to the front. General Barry's standing among
the Nebraska veterans of the Spanish-American and Philippine wars
is evidenced by the ovation given him every time he attends one of
their reunions. As an organizer, as a disciplinarian and as a manager
of men General Barry has proved his efficiency, and these are the quali-
ties that induced the governmental authorities to take him from the
quiet retreats of his country home in Nebraska and put him upon the
board of managers that has to do with the management of one of the
largest and finest sanitariums in the world, that maintained by the
United States government at Hot Springs, South Dakota, for the care
and comfort of disabled volunteer soldiers."
The appointment referred to in this quotation was the selection of
General Barry as a member of the board of managers in charge ot the
Battle Mountain Sanitarium at Hot Springs, and it was from the duties
and responsibilities of that oi^ce that he came to California to take up
his present duties at the Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle.
General Barry, like most men of progressive thought and action, has
had a varied political experience and affiliation. Even while living in
Massachusetts he became identified with the Greenback movement, and
in Nebraska was affiliated with the Farmers Alliance and the People's
party, having been elected and served two terms as a member of the
Nebraska Legislature. In later years he has chosen a rather independent
course in casting his ballot.
General Barry had an ideally happy home life. He and his wife
enjoyed an uninterrupted companionship for over forty years, and it
has been his privilege to see five sturdy sons grow to manhood and fill
places of usefulness in the world. These sons are: Judge James B., of
Sawtelle, California; Patrick, of Greeley Center, Nebrask.i; John. P.,
who lives on the old homestead at Greeley Center; Francis A., also a
farmer of Greeley Center, and Thomas M., a stockman and farmer at
Greeley Center.
Rt. Rev. Thomas James Conaty. While his long and distinguished
service was too broad to be credited to any one community, Los Angebs
takes proper pride in the fact that the last twelve years of Bishop
Conaty's life were spent in Southern California, as Bishop of Monterey
and Los Angeles.
He represented the famous Milesian stock, inhabitants of Ireland for
centuries, and was born at Kilnaleck, County Cavan, August 1, 1847.
He died in his sixty-ninth year, September 18, 1915. His parents,
Patrick and Alice (Lynch), Conaty, brought their family to Massachu-
setts May 10, 1850. Bishop Conaty was educated in the public schools
of Taunton, Massachusetts, and on December 30, 1863, entered Montreal
College and in September, 1867, became a member of the junior class of
Holy Cross College at Worcester, Massachusetts. He graduated A. B.
in July, 1869, and took his theological work in the Grand Seminary at
Montreal, where he was ordained priest December 21, 1872. George-
town University conferred upon him the degree D. D. in 1889 and he also
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 157
had the degrees J. C. D. and D. D. from the Laval University of Quebec
in 1896.
January 1, 1873, he became assistant pastor of St. John's church
at Worcester, Massachusetts, and during his seven years labor there
distinguished himself by his strong personality, his genial disposition
and his unlimited capacity for work. January 10, 1880, he became pas-
tor of the Sacred Heart church of Worcester. For fourteen years at
Worcester he was a member of the City School Board, and some of the
best educational measures of the city are credited to his liberal and far
reaching policies. He was also elected a trustee of the Worcester Public
Library for two consecutive terms.
He was selected by the American Catholic Bishops, trustees of the
University, to succeed Bishop Keane as registrar of the Catholic Uni-
versity at Washington, and was appointed to that office by Pope Leo
Xni November 20, 1896. June 19, 1897, the Pope also conferred upon
him the title of Domestic Prelate and nominated him in 1901 as Titular
Bishop of Samos. November 24, 1901, he was consecrated Bishop by
Cardinal Gibbons at Baltimore. March 27, 1903, he was appointed
Bishop of Monterey and Los Angeles, and took active charge of the
diocese in June of the same' year.
Bishop Conaty was long identified with educational and social move-
ments. From July, 1892, until 1896 he served as president of the Catholic
Summer School of America at Plattsburg, New York. He was president
of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America from 1886 to 1888,
and lent the full strength of his position and his personality to the spread
of that movement. From 1900 to 1903 he was president of the Confer-
ence of Catholic Bishops of America. He also founded and edited for
four years the Catholic School and Home Magazine.
While such severe demands were made upon him in the exercise of
his administrative functions, he also found much time for literary effort,
and his literary output covered a large field of religious, educational and
civic subjects. He also ranked among the foremost pulpit orators and
lecturers of the country. Among his numerous writings are "New Testa-
ment Studies," published in 1896. He was identified with numerous
movements for the moral and civic betterment of Los Angeles. He was
a member of the Newman Club, Sunset Club, California and University
Clubs of Los Angeles, the Municipal League and the Choral Society,
and was an associate member of Grand Army Post No. 10 at Worcester,
Massachusetts.
Rev. Francis J. Conaty, who is a nephew of Bishop Conaty, was
for a number of years associated with his honored uncle in the ecclesias-
tical duties of the diocese and is pastor of the Cathedral Chapel at Los
Angeles.
Father Conaty was born at Taunton, Massachusetts. March 19, 1880,
son of Francis P. and Nellie (Linnane) Conaty. His parents were
natives of the same Massachusetts town. Father Conaty attended gram-
mar and high schools, graduating from the latter in 1898, and then en-
tered Holy Cross College at Worcester, Massachusetts, from which he
was graduated with A. B. degree in 1902. His studies for the priest-
hood were pursued for two years at the Grand Seminary in Montreal,
and two years at St. Mar}''s Seminary at Baltimore. He was ordained
priest September 23, 1906, and at once came to Los Angeles to serve in
the Diocese of J\Ionterey. He was chancellor and secretary of the diocese
until January, 1918, and has been pastor of the Cathedral Chapel since
158 LOS ANGELES
1914. Father Conaty is a member of the Board of Directors of the
Public Library and has held that office since September, 1915.
Edward R. Snyder. There was not enough oil development and
production in Southern California thirty years ago to justify hardly a
line of comment in the histories of that period. Therefore, when it is
stated that Edward R. Snyder was connected with oil operations around
Los Angeles twenty-five years ago, the statement is in itself conclusive
of his veteran association with this, one of the largest and most im-
portant industrial activities of California.
Mr. Snyder, who has been an executive official of half a dozen or
more oil development and production companies, was born at the center
of the original oil fields of America, the state of Pennsylvania. His
birth occurred in Fayette County, August 14, 1866. His parents were
John L. and Susan (Neil) Snyder, both natives of Pittsburgh. A tew
years after his birth his parents moved to Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
There he received his education in the public schools and in the Wood-
lawn Academy. At the age of sixteen his father died, and that event
compelled Edward R. Snyder to give up further school attendance and
assume the major responsibilities of looking after the home farm. Thus
he contributed largely to the support of his widowed mother and the
family. In 1886, at the age of twenty, he got his first experience in the
oil operating and developing business, though he still continued the
management of the farm. Subsequently he was made superintendent of
the pipe lines and production of the Mahoning Gas Company. By reason
of his experience, Mr. Snyder was really an expert in nearly all phases
of oil production when he came west to California, and in the fall of
1893 located at Pasadena, where he still resides. He then went to Gila
Bend, Arizona, and was employed four months in drilling a water well
for the Southern Pacific Railway Company. On returning to Los An-
geles, he went to work as driller and tool dresser with various oil
operators.
In 1896 Mr. Snyder was identified in putting down the first oil well
at Coalingo, California, in what afterward became one of the famous
fields on the Pacific Coast. A year later he took up leases on oil lands,
forming a partnership with H. L. Chadwick and J. P. and J. W. Brunton.
This firm drilled twelve wells, which they later sold. Mr. Snyder then
entered the contracting business on his own account, incorporating the
Kreyen-Hagen Land and Oil Company, the Black Mountain Petroleum
Company and the Directors Oil Company, the last being a contracting
land holding company. Mr. Snyder was president and manager of these
three corporations until 1901. In that year the charters of the first two
were surrendered, but Mr. Snyder still continues as president of the
last company.
In 1901 a transfer in his operations were made to Watsonville,
California, where he organized the Alberta Oil Company and was its
vice president and manager four years. He then drilled a well for the
new Moody Gulch Oil Company at Alma, California. For a time after
that he was practically retired and lived in Los Angeles. In 1914 Mr.
Snyder became identified with the Trojan Oil Company, which com-
pleted a well in the Maricopa district. Mr. Snyder was vice president
and director of this company.
In 1914 he became secretary, general manager and director of the
C. C. Harris Oil Company, the largest company operating in the old Los
Angeles oil field. He is also president and manager of the Stanley Oil
y--=LMi ^^.^^--i^y
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 159
Company. These connections and activities serve to indicate his well
deserved prominence as a factor in the oil industry of southern Cali-
fornia from its pioneer stages to the present.
Mr. Snyder is a Democrat and a member of the Presbyterian Church.
In Beaver County, Pennsylvania, October 27, 1886, he married Miss
Jennie M. Shannon. Their one child, Florence, is a graduate of the
Pacific Union College at Napa, California, and is now Mrs. Arthur
Hollenbeck.
Rev. John J. G.\ll.\gher. Of the zealous and able group of men
who have the executive responsibilities involved in many Catholic
churches and institutions in southern California, Rev. John J. Gallagher
is conspicuous as pastor of St. Thomas Catholic Church at Los Angeles.
Father Gallagher has been a devoted priest in California for the past ten
years.
He was born at Mass Hill, County Sligo, Ireland, June 2, 1883, son
of Michael and Mary (Henry) Gallagher. To the age of fifteen he
attended the National Schools there, took his classical course for four
years at St. Nathy's Seminary at Ballaghadareen, and studied theology in
St. Patrick's College at Carlow. He was ordained a priest in 1908, and
the following year he spent in Washington, D. C, at St. Patrick's Uni-
versity.
On coming to Los Angeles, Father Gallagher was appointed assist-
ant pastor of the Cathedral. After four mouths he was sent to Yuma,
Arizona, and there for seven weeks served as assistant pastor of the
Indian School. Then returning to Los Angeles, he was assistant pastor
of the Cathedral, and on December 10, 1909, was made assistant pastor
of the Church of the Sacred Heart. July 26, 1912, he became the first
pastor of St. Mary's Church at Fulton, and did some splendid work in
that parish for about six years. He was appointed pastor of St. Mary's
Church at Los Angeles in March, 1918.
St. Mary's Church was erected in 1897 and was dedicated by Bishop
Montgomery. The church was entirely free from debt before its doors
were opened. The first pastor was Rev. Joseph Doyle, who was suc-
ceeded by Rev. Joseph Barron, and he in turn by Rev. Joseph Mc]\Ianus.
The following societies are a part of the parish: Young Men's Club,
Holy Name Society, Altar Society and Young Ladies Sodality. St.
Mary's parochial school in connection with the church is conducted by
the Sisters of the Holy Name and has an enrollment of five hundred
scholars. Father Gallagher is a member of the Knights of Columbus.
Re.\ E. Maynard, vice president and director of the General Pe-
troleum Corporation, is one of the ablest engineers in the west. His
career has been one of most interesting experience and achievement,
and has led him into the scenes of constructive activity and over a large
part of the Globe.
He was born July 17, 1870, at a little town in Iowa, Tipton, where
his father. Dr. Henry Hobart Alaynard, was for many years a practicing
physician. His father, a native of Columbus, Ohio, was brought to Iowa
by his parents at the age of nine years, and he grew up and received his
education there, finishing in the State University of Iowa. He took his
medical course in the Rush Medical College at Chicago, but left school
in 1861 to enhst as an assistant surgeon of the Eighteenth Iowa Infantry.
Later he was made surgeon of the Second Arkansas Cavalry, and was
finally advanced to medical director of southwest Missouri. At the close
160 LOS ANGELES
of the Civil war he located at Tipton, Iowa, and was in practice there
until 1881. In that year he brought his family to Los Angeles, and
was one of the well-known physicians of that city until his death in 1908.
Dr. Maynard was a Republican. He married, at Chariton, Iowa, Susan
H. Edwards, and their three children are: Miss Maud, still at home;
Rea E. and Frederick G., of San Jose, California.
Rea E. Maynard was eleven years old when his father came to Los
Angeles. In the meantime he had attended the public schools of Tipton,
and was a pupil in the grammar and high schools of Los Angeles to
the age of eighteen. He took freshman work in mechanical engineering
in the Rose Polytechnic Institute at Terre Haute, Ind. Returning west,
he did some engineering work with the old Terminal Railroad, now
part of the Salt Lake Railroad, for two years. Mr. Maynard then en-
rolled as one of the first students of Stanford University, where he
graduated in 1894 as a mechanical engineer. One year following he
spent with the City Engineering Department of Los Angeles, and then
entered the Colorado School of Mines at Golden, from which he re-
ceived a diploma as mining engineer in 1896.
Thus his professional service as an engineer covers a quarter of a
century, and has been filled with many interesting experiences. For
two years he was a mining engineer in different localities of the west.
At the outbreak of the Spanish-American war he went to the Hawaiian
Islands and was in that interesting republic more than five years. At
that time he built three railroad lines and also some of the noted public
highways of the island. One of these highways is world famous and
stands out as one of Mr. Maynard's greatest achievements. It is the
road to the Pali on the Island of Oahu. The railroads he built were
for the Honolulu Sugar Company, the Kona Sugar Company and the
Hawaiian Agricultural Company.
Mr. Maynard also spent about a year surveying and developing tin
deposits in Southern Asia. Returning to San Francisco, he was superin-
tendent of construction for the Centerville plant of the Pacific Gas and
Electric Corporation until 1906, the year of the earthquake, when con-
struction was temporarily abandoned. For the following two years Mr.
Maynard was interested in electric power projects at various points in
eastern California and Nevada. Then, after a trip through the east and
his return to Los Angeles, he became engineer for Captain John Barneson
in developing the immense oil interests of the captain. September 20,
1910, Mr. Maynard started the actual survey of the pipe line for the
General Petroleum Company, of which Captain Barneson is president.
This pipe line extends from the Lost Hills Oil Field to Los Angeles.
Ditching work was begun at Pentland, California, July 31, 1912, and
was finished March 17, 1913. Oil was brought into Los Angeles by
pipe line May 10, 1913, and to San Pedro on June 8th of the same year.
This pipe line is a difficult piece of engineering, and was constructed in
record time at a cost of five million dollars. It has eighteen pumping
stations along the line, and one interesting distinction is that at one
point the pipe line runs at an altitude of 4,230 feet above sea level, the
highest pipe line in the world.
As already noted, Mr. Maynard is now vice president and director
of the General Petroleum Corporation and is chief engineer and director
of its pipe line transportation. He is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner,
a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, of the American
Institute of Mining Engineers, of the California and University Clubs,
the San Gabriel Country Club, and the Sigma Nu Fraternity. He is an
independent in politics.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 161
Adrien Loeb. One of the Los Angeles business men whose lives
are stimulating as personal experience and represent a high degree of
achievement in the commercial world is Adrian Loeb, head of the Adrien
Loeb Company, one of the largest and oldest established wholesale pro-
duce and fruit houses in southern California.
Mr. Loeb was bom at Avenches, Switzerland, June 11, 1866, son of
Bernard and Florentine (Block) Loeb. He acquired a liberal education,
graduating from high school at the age of eighteen, and from Lausanne
College, in Switzerland, in 1884. For a year or so he was a dealer in
horses and cattle, but in 1886 set out for America, arriving in Los
Angeles February 24. Many men have won success in business afifairs
because they were willing to take what was apparently a very humble
position and make it a stepping stone to higher things. That was true
of Mr. Loeb, whose first employment in Los Angeles was as a porter for
the (iermain I'^ruit Com])any. His wages were thirty dollars a month.
i\.t that time he had a very meager knowledge of the English language,
but his early education proved useful, since it included a knowledge of
bookkeeping. He soon made arrangements with the bookkeeper ot the
Germain Company to afford him some special training in the business at
night. This instruction was carried on after the pro|3rietor had gone
home, and Germain therefore had no knowledge of his porter's capabili-
ties beyond the fact that he appeared an industrious workman. After
about six months Mr. Germain opened a fruit packing house at Riverside
and promoted his regular bookkeeper to manager of that establishment.
It was at that time he learned, much to his surprise, that the young por-
ter, Adrien Loeb, had a practical knowledge of the books of the com-
pany, and from that time Adrien Loeb had a new position in the offices
of the concern. Mr. Germain was quite willing to encourage his am-
bitious employe, and kept giving him additional responsibilities, until in
February, 1891, Mr. Loeb became vice president and general manager
of the Germain Fruit Company.
In 1896 Mr. Loeb and Adolph Fleishman bought out the Germain
Company, changing its name to Loeb, Fleishman & Company. In 1901
Isadore Fleishman, a brother of Adolph, came in as a partner, though
without making a change in the title. Isadore Fleishman died March 8,
1918, and on July 1, 1918, Mr. Loeb acquired all the other interests and
has since been sole owner of the business, changing the name to Adrien
Loeb Company. Mr. Loeb conducts his business on the co-operative
plan, giving his older employes share in the profits as well as salaries,
and thus he is giving to others in the way of encouragement what Mr.
Germain did for him some thirty years ago. The Adrien Loeb Com-
pany has a large plant and .warehouses and other facilities, and handles
an immense volume of provisions, the trade territory being California,
Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.
On account of his long and enviable prominence in produce circles,
Mr. Loeb was honored with election to the office of president of the Los
Angeles Produce Exchange on Januarj^ 1, 1919. He served as president
of the Wholesalers' Board of Trade of Los Angeles in 1898. Mr. Loeb
is a member of the Royal Arcanum, is a republican in politics and a
member of the Jewish faith. March 18, 1894, he married, in San Fran-
cisco, Emma Steiner. She died November 24, 1918.
162 LOS ANGELES
Lionel T. Barneson, a son of Captain John Barneson, noted Cali-
fornia capitalist and head of the General Petroleum Company, has
earned success and important position in business affairs on his own
account, and knows the oil business through every detail of practical
experience.
He was born in one of the interesting South Sea Islands, Papeete,
Tahiti, September 14, 1890. Most of his life has been spent in California
and he attended grammar and high schools at Redwood City, graduating
in 1909. When he entered the oil industry he chose one of the points
of contact with that business which involved hard work. He became a
roustabout with the Wabash Oil Company in the Coalinga Oil Field.
Though his father was president of the company, he sought no favors
on that account. From roustabout he became tool dresser, and in the
summer of 1910 went to the Lost Hills Oil Field at Esperanza, becoming
connected with the Esperanza Consolidated Oil Company, from which
the General Petroleum Company was developed. Li September, 1911,
Air. Barneson removed to Los Angeles and, under the direction of the
General Petroleum Company, took up the study of oil refining with the
Trumble Refining Company, which is now controlled by the General
Company. In 1912 Mr. Barneson supervised the erection of the refining
plant at Vernon, California, and was its superintendent until 1913. He
then became superintendent of refineries for the General Petroleum Com-
pany, and in 1915 was put in charge of the refining department, H. H.
Isaacs succeeding him in charge of the Vernon plant. In January, 1918,
Mr. Barneson also became assistant to the president of the company, his
father. He is a director of the General Petroleum Company, of the
Trumble Refining Company and of the San Vincente Land Company.
Mr. Barneson is well known in Los Angeles socially, a member of
the Athletic Club, Brentwood Country Club, and is a republican. At
Yreka, California, October 29, 1914, he married Hazel C. Hamerson.
They have two children, Janet H. and Robert L.
Albert L. Gude, proprietor of one of the largest retail shoe estab-
lishments in Los Angeles, began his career here a number of years ago
as a clerk, and it was through the exacting discipline of working for
others and a growing experience and alertness for opportunity that
eventually enabled him to embark in business for himself.
Mr. Gude was born at Birmingham, Alabama, November 21, 1878,
a son of William Lawrence and Hatton (Heidelberg) Gude. His father
was born at Kallundborg, Denmark, was educated there and in early
youth came to America. He was connected with railroading in Canada
for a time and later moved to Alabama, where he followed railroading.
At the time of his death he was superintendent of the Tennessee Coal
and Iron Company at Birmingham, the largest organization of its kind
in the south. He died in 1893.
Albert L. Gude received his early education in the public schools at
Cullman, Alabama. At the age of sixteen, soon after his father's death,
he came west to Los Angeles. For two years he clerked for the M. P.
Snyder Shoe Company, and later with the Hayden B. Lewis wholesale
leather and shoe supply house as a salesman for one year. Going to
The Dalles, Oregon, he was manager of the shoe department of a dry
goods store four years. On returning to Los Angeles Mr. Gude became
salesman in the shoe department of the Hamburger Department Store
for a year, and then invested all his capital and experience in a stock of
shoes, and Gude's, Incorporated, opened at its place of business at the
S.AX'A-'^ ftAJ'^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 163
corner of Fourth and Spring streets. He was located there for eight
years, and during that time huilt up a prosperous business, having the
agency for the Burt & Packard shoe. He then removed to his present
store, 537 South Broadway, and lias developed his facilities to a large
scale, represented by the employment of fifty people in the different de-
partments. He sells men's and women's shoes.
Mr. Gude is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Los An-
geles Country Club, the Chamber of Commerce and is a Mason and a
Shriner, and is affiliated with the Order of Elks. November 23, 1903,
at Los Angeles, he married Miriam Barnes. They are the parents of
three children : Kathryn Frances and Elizabeth Hatton, both students
in the Berkeley Hall School for Girls, and William Lawrence, who was
born in 1912.
Sennet W. Gilfillan, president of the GilfiUan Brothers Smelting
and Refining Company, is spoken of by all his friends and associates as a
special genius both in technical industry and the general business field.
He is a young man, and for all that may be said properly to justify the
claim of the older generation of inventors and experts, it is true that
the astounding marvels of the present day industrialism largely reflect
the genius, capacity and inexhaustible energy of a group of younger men,
among whom Sennet W. Gilfillan is by no means the least.
Mr. Gilfillan has spent most of his life in Los Angeles. He was
born, however, in Leavenworth, Kansas, November 25, 1889, son of
William and Cora (Sennet) Gilfillan. His' father was a native of Penn-
sylvania, was educated there, and later moved to Carthage, Missouri,
where he became a contractor in the flagstone business. He furnished
flagstones for many large contracts, including the Union Passenger Sta-
tion at St. Louis. In 1895 he came to Los Angeles with his family, but
retained his business in Carthage, Missouri, where he passed away in
1898. He and Cora Sennet were married in Carthage, Missouri, in
1887. The latter was born in that town, and her father was a captain
in the northern army during the Civil war. She first came to Los Angeles
in 1884 on a visit, and in 1895 moved to this city with her children. There
are three children, Mrs. lone G. Brown of Los Angeles and Sennet W.
and J. G., who make up the Gilfillan Brothers firm.
Sennet W. Gilfillan was educated in the public schools of Los An-
geles, attended St. Vincent's College until 1902, and in 1906 graduated
A. B. from Santa Clara College at Santa Clara, California. Later he
was a student in Leland Stanford University and graduated from that
institution in 1912.
Almost immediately he was attracted into the general field where
he has since specialized. As a buyer of platinum he did an extensive
business for eighteen months, buying at the source of production in
Canada and selling in New York. He then returned to Los Angeles and,
with his brother, formed the partnership of Gilfillan Brothers Smelting
and Refining Company, for the smelting of gold, silver and platinum.
Their first headquarters were at 161 North Spring street. Gradually
the business developed special features, particularly the manufacture of
platinum pointed ignition parts and portable electric tools. Since the
war broke out they have been manufacturing metal parts for the Curtis
aeroplanes for practice purposes. They also manufacture "Bakelite" in-
sulating parts for wireless telephones as used in naval and air service.
In 1916 they erected their plant at Eleventh and Wall streets, in Los,
Angeles, and have a large factory, wath a hundred and twenty-five people
164 LOS ANGELES
working night and day in three shifts. In 1916 they also opened branch
offices in New York City and Kansas Cit}'. Their general offices are at
217 West Sixth street, in Los Angeles. The business was incorporated
June 10, 1917, with S. W. Gilfillan president, J- G. Gilfillan vice president,
and Miss A. W. Kluseman secretary and treasurer.
Gilfillan products are by their very nature highly technical and
hardly appropriate for general description in this brief article. How-
ever, automobile owners have a practical familiarity with the many igni-
tion parts manufactured by the Gilfillans, including contact points,
brushes and other equipment used in practically every type of electrical
equipment used in automobile constrviction.
It will suffice to refer to the general ideals and spirit which govern
ihe business and which have been set forth in one of the handsome cata-
logs that advertise Gilfillan products. "From the beginning it has been
the aim of Gilfillan Brothers Smelting and Refining Company to build a
business that would never know completion, that would advance con-
tinually to meet advancing conditions ; to create a personality that would
be known for its strength and friendliness ; to arrange and co-ordinate
activities to the end of winning confidence by meriting it ; and to develop
quality and service to a notable degree." This ideal has been translated
into achievement, and it is an achievement of which the Gilfillan Brothers
may well be proud.
Mr. S. W. Gilfillan married, at Los Angeles, February 20, 1918,
Edna Miles, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Toseph Miles of Westmoreland
Place.
WiLLiTTS J. Hole. A number of the larger business undertakings
in Southeni California have been successfully piloted and directed by
Willitts J. Hole during the past quarter of a century. Mr. Hole came
to Los Angeles after a successful business career in the state of Indiana.
While his early business experience was largely along the lines of manu-
facturing and contracting, he has shown what amounts to a genius in
•the handling and developing of immense properties, especially ranches,
in California, and few men could claim a greater share of credit for the
immense fruit and agricultural production than Mr. Hole.
He was born at Madison, Indiana, October 9, 1858, son of William
and Matilda (Hasley) Hole. His paternal ancestors came from Devon-
shire, England, the founder of the American branch sailing from Plym-
outh, England, in 1740. When Willitts J. was seven years old his parents
moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he attended public and high schools
to the age of eighteen. He completed a course in Bryant & Stratton
Business College in 1880, and in 1884 graduated from Chattanooga Uni-
versity. He then went to Butlerville, Indiana, and worker in a chair
factory for three years. At North Vernon, Indiana, he established a
small planing mill, lumber yard and subsequently a chair factor}', and
gradually entered the general construction business, erecting numerous
public buildings, churches and other structures over a wide extended
territory. He made a practical study of architecture, and has frequently
designed his own building improvements.
It was the health of Mrs. Hole that 'brought him to Southern Cali-
fornia in 1893. He spent the first three months at Santa Barbara and
gradually divorced himself from his business interests in the east and
for many years has concentrated all his efforts in the west. From Santa
• Barbara he went to Whittier and soon afterward began buying land in
the La Habra Vrdley. He is known as the father of La Habra Valley,
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 165
and eventually became owner of all the good land in that section, in-
cluding the Rancho La Habra of 7,500 acres. He also acquired the
San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana Rancho of t\fo thousand acres, and the
Rancho Los Coyotes of twenty-five hundred acres. This land he bought
at prices ranging from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars an acre, and
some of it today is worth as high as four thousand dollars an acre. He
sold out about thirty-five hundred acres of this tract, and it is now
covered with orange and lemon groves.
In 1897 Mr. Hole became resident agent at Los Angeles for the
Stearns Ranches Company of San Francisco, owning a hundred eighty
thousand acres, which Mr. Flole gradually sold off. That property in-
cluded the Rancho La Sierra at Riverside, seventeen thousand acres,
which is now part of the individual properties of Mr. Hole. He also
owns a ten-thousand-acre ranch in Riverside County planted to sugar
beets, tomatoes, oranges and lemons, grapefruit, peaches, apricots and
alfalfa, which is a small industrial center in itself, requiring the services
of about fifty people on the ranch. There is also a large cannery, and
a complete irrigation plant has been installed for the ranch, including
four pumping plants. Together with I. W. Hollingsworth, Mr. Hole
owns a sixteen-thousand-acre ranch near Needles, California, devoted
to cotton culture. He owns a fifth interest in thirty-one thousand acres
comprising the property of the Belridge Oil Company, of which he is
secretary. He is also president and manager of the Arden Plaster Com-
pany, president of the Western Silica Company of Los Angeles, and
president of the California Industrial Company and a director of the
Citizens National Bank. Mr. Hole has bought and subdivided some of
the largest areas in California and has become personally owner of ex-
tensive tracts both in this state and in Mexico. For several years he
represented a large financial institution of Mexico. The Arden Plaster
Company owns the largest gypsum mine in the United States.
Mr. Hole is also well known socially, being a member of the
Jonathan Club, a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a member of the
Chamber of Commerce, the California Club and Los Angeles County
Club, Newport Yacht Club and the San Joaquin Gun Club. He is a
republican in politics, and in religious affiliation is a birthright Quaker.
At North Vernon, Indiana, June 12, 1887, Mr. Hole married Miss
Mary Weeks, daughter of Harvey R. Weeks. Her father for a num-
ber of years was a mechanical engineer with the Ohio .& Mississippi
Railroad, and later with the Queen & Crescent Route. Mr. and Mrs.
Hole have one daughter, Agnes Marian, now Mrs. S. K. Rindge of Los
Angeles. The two children of Mr. and Mrs. Rindge are named Samuel
Hole and Ramona.
William L. Valentine is a man of unusual experience and
achievement, and especially since entering the oil industry has had rare
success in developing and promoting one of the best known companies
operating in California, the Fullerton Oil Company.
Mr. Valentine was born in Mendocino County, California, March 8,
1870, a son of William and Susan (Lucas) Valentine. His father
was a California forty-niner. A native of New York, soon after the
discover}' of gold in California he organized a company of sixty men,
chartered a vessel and landed at the mouth of the Rio Grande River,
up which they traveled in a flat-bottomed steamer until the channel be-
came impassable. Thence they traveled overland through the states of
Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico, through Arizona and thence into Cali-
166 LOS ANGELES
fornia. William Valentine was in in the mines of California, later
located in Mendocino Co^nt3^ and was connected with a lumber com-
pany. He was a civil arfti mechanical engineer and practiced his pro-
fession for many years. In 1881 he moved to San Francisco, and lived
there until his death in 1890.
William L. Valentine, the only child of his parents, graduated from
the Lincoln Grammar School at San Francisco in 1885. He spent an-
other year in the Commercial High School of that city and found his
first employment at the age of fifteen with a lumber and box business.
After a year he became office boy for Easton, Eldridge & Company, one
of the largest real estate firms of San Francisco. He made rapid progress
in the confidence of that firm, and in 1893 was sent to Los Angeles as
manager of the Los Angeles office.
Mr. Valentine found his great opportunity in business when, in
1900, having resigned from Easton, Eldridge & Company, he organized
the Fullerton Oil Company. From the first he has been its largest stock-
holder. The company began with fifty acres of proven oil land, and only
one assessment upon the capital stock was required to develop the hold-
ings. Out of the profits additional acreage was bought, and during the
first ten years the company paid out in dividends more than three times
its original authorized capital of six hundred thousand dollars. Mr.
Valentine was secretary and general manager of the company until 1918,
when he was elected president.
He is also identified with other financial organizations, being a
director of the Merchants National Bank, Security Trust and Savings
Bank and the Globe Grain and Milling Company. He is a Knight Tem-
plar Mason, affiliated with Los Angeles Commandery No. 9, and is a
Shriner. He is a member of the California Club, Los Angeles Country
Club, Midwick Country Club, San Gabriel Valley Country Club. Los
Angeles Athletic Club, Bolsa Chica Gun Club, San Isidro Gun Club,
Tuna Club, and is vice president and director of the Automobile Club of
Southern California. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, a
republican, and is affiliated with the Episcopal Church. He is also a
junior member of the Society of California Pioneers.
May 26, 1895, at Los Angeles, he married Louie Chandler Robinson,
daughter of the late J. W. Robinson, one of the early merchants of Los
Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Valentine have five children : Julia S., a senior
in the University of California ; Susan, a student in Ramona Convent
at Alhambra ; William W., born in 1907. and Edward R., born in 1908,
both pupils in the public schools, while the youngest is Henry W., born
in 1914.
Ri:v. Andrew Res.\, C. M. F., pastor of the Old Plaza Church of
Los Angeles, is a native of old Spain, where he was liberally educated
and trained for the priesthood, and is of old Castilian stock. He was
born at Calahoua February 2, 1872, son of Peter and Felicia Solano.
To the age of thirteen he attended parochial schools, then spent two
years in the Seminary at Aragon, Spain, two years in the Barbastro Sem-
inary in the Province of Aragon, was a student of philosophy two years
in the University of Cervera at Cataluna, and finished his theological
course in the Santo Domingo de la Calzada at Old Castilia. He was
ordained a deacon in January, 189.\ and in November of the same year
received his ordination as a priest at the University of Cervera.
His work as a priest and missionary covers over twenty years and
has been done altogether in the Spanish-speaking population of Old
RK\". AXDRE\\' KESA. C. M
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 167
Mexico and the adjoining states of Texas, New Mexico and California.
He was fifst sent to Toluca, Mexico, where he taught in the college there
for two years. At Mexico City he spent four years doing missionary
work, and was engaged in similar employment at Guanajuato, Mexico,
four years. His next location was at San Antonio, Texas, as assistant
pastor of the Cathedral and surrounding missions for two years. He
then became pastor of a parish at San Marcus, Texas, where he built
several small churches. Two years later he was appointed pastor of the
San Gabriel Mission, and a year and a half later came to the Old Plaza
Church, in Los Angeles, as its pastor. His first connection with that
church continued a year and a half, and during that time he made some
important changes in the church building and construction. He was again
transferred back to San Antonio, Texas, where for six years Father Resa
had charge of the San Fernando Cathedral. Since that service he has
been the beloved pastor of Old Plaza Church. Father Resa is a member
of the Knights of Columbus and of the Order of Immaculate Heart
Fathers.
Oi^D Plaza Church, of Los Angeles, of which Rev. Andrew Resa is
pastor, is as old as Los Angeles itself, since the first settlers here were
of the community whose worship was later centralized in the church of
this name.
Until the formal establishment of the church on the Plaza the set-
tlers worshipped at San Gabriel, or priests came from that church to
hold worship in private houses at Los Angeles. The founding of the
Pueblo of Los Angeles, under the solemn auspices of the church occurred
in 1781, and the original chapel on the Plaza was begun at the end of
1784' and finished about five years later. Its dimensions were twenty-five
by thirty varas. It was made of adobe and somewhat resembled the
Chapel of the hospital of the Old Mission at San Gabriel, which was
built in 1814. The plan of the present church of Our Lady, Queen of
Angels, were drawn about 1811, and at the same time orders came from
the Governor granting permission fo'- the proposed enterorise. and urg-
ing the Poblanos to build the church. The ceremony was performed
with permission of President Jose Senan, by Padre Luis Gil y Taboada,
then rector of the old San Gabriel Mission. For various reasons the
work was carried on very slowly and with long intervals of almost com-
plete abandonment. Old Plaza Church was finished and dedicated De-
cember 8, 1822. As the complement of the old church and second to it
in historical importance comes the Old Plaza Church Rectory. This
and the church were finished about the same time. The rectory was
built exactly on the same style as the Mission. Like the church it had
a tile roof and the walls were made of adobe, the doors and windows
opening on the interior court or patio. In the midst of the patio there
rose the stately palm which remains there to this day. In the .long
period of nearly a century the Old Plaza Church Rectory has undergone
many and considerable changes.
The Church of Our Lady after a century of vicissitude remains a
landmark of the forethought and wisdom of Spain, and is cared for
by those of the same nationality as founded it and is now in the charge
of the Immaculate Heart Fathers. Without losing its identity it has
been transformed into a large and commodious house of worship.
168 LOS ANGELES
Joseph D. Radford. . Los Angeles lost one of its most prominent
bankers and public-spirited citizens in the death of Joseph D. Radford
in 1918. He had been a resident of California over twenty years, and
was a banker of long and tried experience when he came west.
He was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, April 14, 1857, son of
Joseph Radford. He graduated from the Fond du Lac High School in
1875, and immediately afterward went to work as a messenger with the
First National Bank of Fond du Lac. He became bookkeeper, and in
1883 became connected with the private bank of Nelson Story at Boze-
man, Montana. In 1896 he came to Los Angeles, and for two years was
assistant cashier for the National Bank of California. He located at
San Jose in 1898 and became cashier of the Garden City Bank and Trust
Company, later holding the same position with the First National Bank.
Returning to Los Angeles in 1907, he became vice president of the
German-American Savings Bank, and resigned from that institution to
become vice president of the Hibernian Savings Bank. On the advice
of phvsicians, he retired from business and gave up his position in the
bank 'in 1914.
The welfare of the city in every w^ay was dear to him, especially
those movements and undertakings which meant a broader and better
city for those who live in it. He was chairman of the committee to
celebrate the opening of the Owen's River Aqueduct. He served at one
time as president of the California Bankers' Association. For four years
he was president of the Los Angeles City Playground Commission, and
Mayor Woodman named a new municipal summer playground at Con-
verse Flats in honor of Mr. Radford. He was a Knight Templar Mason
and Shriner, a Republican, a member of the Federation and City Clubs,
of the Jonathan Club, the San Gabriel Country Club, the Municipal
League, and was an elder in the Emanuel Presbyterian Church.
In 1881 he married Miss Maria M. Pinney, who died in 1901. His
only daughter is Mrs. Wilber J. Hall, of Los Gatos, California. In 1908
he married Mrs. Florence (Rivers) Stowell.
June Rand. Despite the action of certain dignified and chivalrous
senators who recently defeated the bill for national suffrage, extending
the franchise irrespective of sex, America is accommodating itself so
rapidly to the new work and the new sphere of woman that her achieve-
ments outside the old conventional realms now seldom excite surprise,
much less criticism. In fact, the great organs of publicity no longer find
"news matter" in the admission of a woman to the bar or to membership
in any of the learned professions, and the tribute of distinction is awarded
her not at all for her choice of work or profession, but solely because of
some extraordinary mark she has made in her particular field.
The magazines and the general newspaper press had much to say
in the last year or two of June Rand of Los Angeles. Without a doubt
June Rand is an exceedingly interesting young woman, interesting as a
woman, the more so because of her business ability and the business
which she has built up and which represents today the flowering of a
distinctive purpose and ideal of her own mind. It is hardly conceivable
that any mere man could have done what she has done, but if it were
possible, that man would be singled out for distinction quite apart from
the question of his sex.
June Rand was born at Indianola, Nebraska, in 1896, and com-
pleted her education at Christian College, in Missouri. She is a daugh-
ter of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur James Rand of Denver. She is also a niece of
William F. Carey, a great American engineer and railroad builder, who
Ma
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 169
is vice president of the China corporation which built and reorganized
the railroad systems of China, and more recently has become head of
the contractors supplying the American government with spruce for
aeroplane construction in the northwest.
Since girlhood June Rand has been noted for her independence of
judgment and action. She is also prompt in decision, considered one of
the most vital elements in the success of a good executive. Almost her
first important decision and determination was to come to California,
and once here she opened her heart to all the charms of the country and
has never gone back east. Her father and mother have visited her, but
she has acknowledged no other home than California since she left school
in Missouri.
About that time she was visiting at the home of her uncle, William
F. Carey, above mentioned. She was invited to go with Mr. and Mrs.
Carey to China, an invitation she accepted. All was in readiness down
to the packing of her trunk. The day before departure she went to see
"Daddy Long Legs," and the play, coupled with a lonesome letter from
her mother, made her so homesick that she unpacked her trunks and told
her uncle she could not go. Her passports all had been secured and Mr.
Carey was naturally disappointed. He informed her that she was old
enough to know her mind, and if she was ever going to know it, it must
be now, and added "whatever you do, take up something definite and
make a success of it. If you make a success of whatever you undertake
now, write me that you have one year from now and I wilj stand with
you."
This interview with her uncle doubtless had some influence, but the
influence should not be exaggerated, since June Rand undoubtedly had
the fire within her which is not kindled or quenched by any transient or
temporary event or circumstance.
Fortunately for the world, most young people begin life with high
ideals of the importance of the service they can render, and fortunately,
too, some of them actually realize their ideals. June Rand had a desire
to be useful in some practical way. She was not especially fond of needle-
work, except in the planning and creating side. At her little home in
Hollywood she made a few dresses of gingham, very practical and de-
signed to be worn as house dresses. The first ones she wore herself,
and then made some for her friends, and finally some of the shops in
Hollywood were buying her product. This initial success encouraged
her to try some of the big stores in Los Angeles. Robinson's store gave
her her first big order, for twelve dozen dresses. There are many thous-
ands of women all over this country who have worn the dresses made
by June Rand, but they know them by a distinctive name, the "Sassy
Jane" dresses. Miss Rand as a girl had been nicknamed "Sassy Jane,"
a name that stayed with her and which she later affixed to her product.
Her first dresses she not only planned, but made by hand, though the
latter part of the work was rather tedious and distasteful. After the
popularity of her dresses was established and with numerous orders
coming every day, she rented two plain foot machines, employed some
women as stitchers, supervised the work during the day, and at night
cut her patterns on the floor for the following day's work. She had
never heard of buttonhole machines, and she therefore made all the
buttonholes by hand, much to the surprise of the shopkeepers, who had
not seen hand-made buttonholes in years. One day she went through
the Fischer factory, Mr. Fischer showing her the cutting machines and
the pressing machines and the entire layout. While there she made
170 LOS ANGELES
arrangements by telephone with the Singer Company for a power ma-
chine. One power machine could do the work of four foot machines,
and with only one operator. About that time she rented a small, room
in the old Hellman Building, at Second and Broadway, and installed in
it the one power machine, and she continued cutting and designing the
dresses at night, and during the day acted as general salesman for her
factory. As soon as other stores had heard of the "Sassy Janes," orders
began coming in in large lots, justifying the addition of more machines,
and gradually all the crude and laborious features of her olant wen.;
eliminated and, so far as possible, systematic arrangement and machinery
left Miss Rand free for the larger work of supervision, planning and
creation. However, for fully six months after the introduction of the
first machines she did the cutting and planning at night.
There were other features of her business which were applied
gradually. She did not understand at first the vital connection between
industrial expansion and capital. Her limited finances, even with the
big growth of the business, handicapped her progress. Finally she visited
Mr. Avery, president of the German-American Bank, and after he had
made a personal inspection of her factory and looked over her order book,
he loaned her half of the value of the five thousand dollars worth of
orders outstanding at that time.
This brief story of June Rand can only serve to suggest many of
the difficulties and experiences she had as a Los Angeles business woman.
One point must be kept in mind, that she is -now only twenty-two years
of age, and her business career covers only two or three years at most.
Hence the developments above noted came rather rapidly. The next
important one was when she formed a company. The Sassy Jane Com-
pany is incorporated under the laws of California, at first with a capital
of ten thousand dollars, and later for fifty thousand dollars. June Rand
is actual head of the business and president of the company. Her asso-
ciates are Mr. Victor Levy, of the firm Jules Levy & Son of San Fran-
cisco, lace importers, and Mr. Sidney Chaplin, representing the interests
of Charley and Sid Chaplin. Though the business is only about two and
a half years old, the company is now doing six hundred thousand dollars
worth yearly, employs in the model and sanitary factory on the sixth
floor of a modern fireproof building a working force of a hundred eight-
een persons, besides fifteen salesmen who carry the "Sassy Jane" dresses
all over the United States and to Honolulu. Instead of one or two
power machines, there are now one hundred fifty machines of different
types and for different purposes, and at the head of this business,
recognized as one of the largest of its kind in the west, and, in fact, a
large institution in Los Angeles, irrespective of kind, remains June Rand,
active, vigilant, expert in detail, and with a mind constantly planning and
creating new ideas, and with that freshness of outlook and spirit which
is of course natural to one so young, but which is the more remarkable
because througli an active and varied experience which comes to few
women she has kepi her ideals unimpaired and has in fact seen her
dreams come true.
And the dream that all women are supposed to dream has also been
realized. September 7, 1918, June Rand and Captain D. Marshall Taylor
were married at San Diego. Captain Taylor at this writing is Judge
Advocate at Fort MacArthur. He is a graduate of the University of
California School of Jurisprudence and was commissioned a lieutenant
in the regular army soon after war was declared with Germany. Cap-
tain Taylor is a son of ^Ir. and Mrs. Taylor O. Taylor of Pasadena.
FROM THE iMOL'XTAIXS TO THE SEA 171
Henry Wells Petteuone, a resident of Los Angeles since 1897,
has been an important factor in business and manufacturing affairs, and
for many years has been one of the directing heads in the Forve-
Pettebone Company, dealers and manufacturers of sas and electric
fixtures.
Mr. Pettebone was born at Dorancetown, Pennsylvania, September
4, 1860, son of Jacob Sharpes and Sarah (Williamson) Pettebone. This
branch of the "Pettebone family was established in America by John
Pettebone, a French Huguenot, who settled in England and. on coming
to America, located at Windsor, Connecticut. One of his sons, Noah,
removed to Pennsylvania in 1769, settling in the Wyoming Valley. He
was a direct ancestor of Henry Pettebone.
The latter had a pubhc school education in Pennsylvania, and in
1878 graduated from the Wyoming Commercial College. Reasons of ill
health caused him to come west to Colorado, where for about ten years
he was traveling salesman, with headquarters at Denver, for R. Douglas
& Company. In 1889 he became traveling representative for the St. Louis
Glass and Queensware Company, and during the next eight years de-
veloped an immense business for this firm over the southv.-estern terri-
tory, to which he was assigned.
Mr. Pettebone became a permanent resident of Los Angeles June 17,
1897. For several years he was connected with the W. G. Hutchison
Company, manufacturers of gas and electric fixtures. Then, in Novem-
ber, 1901, he helped organize the Forve-Pettebone Company. For sev-
eral years they did only a retail business in gas and electric fixtures, but
gradually branched out as manufacturers, and in the course of eighteen
years have become one of the largest firms in the southwest in their line.
They are manufacturers and wholesalers, and also maintain a retail store
in Los Angeles. Mr. Pettebone was president of the_ company until
August, 1910, when, on account of ill health, he assumed lighter re-
sponsibilities, now acting as vice president. His firm is a member of
the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association of Los Angeles, and for
twenty years he has manifested a commendable interest in everything
affecting not only the business prosperity of the community, but also its
social and civic welfare. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce
and the ^Municipal League, is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, and
a life member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. From his own experi-
ence he has become an enthusiastic advocate of outdoor life and health-
ful sports. His favorite recreation and health builder is surf bathing.
He spends a large part of the year at his summer home at Venice, the
nearest beach to Los Angeles. Mr. Pettebone also owns other valuable
real estate interests in Los Angeles.
^larch 15, 1899, he married Bertha R. Webber, now deceased.
Right Rev. Joseph Horsf.kll Johnson was consecrated Episcopal
Bishop of Los Angeles in 1896, and has endeared himself to southern
California by thousands of services and by the example of a saintly life.
He was born at Schnectady. New York, June 7, 1847, a son of
Stephen Hotchkiss and Eleanor (Horsfall) Johnson. He is of the same
family as Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was the first American Episcopal
clergyman ordained in England for work in an American congregation.
Dr. Samuel Johnson was the first president and his son the third pres-
ident of Columbia College, at New York.
Bishop Johnson graduated A. B. from Williams College in 1870,
172 LOS ANGELES
and from the General Theological Seminary in 1873. He was awarded
the degree S. T. D. by the General Theological Seminary in 1908. He
was made a deacon in 1873, and a priest in 1874, and his first work in
the ministry was with the Holy Trinity Church at Highland, New York,
which he served from 1873 to 1879. He was rector of Trinity Church,
at Bristol, Rhode Island, during 1879-81, and in St. Peter's Church at
Westchester, New York, from 1881 to 1886. In the latter year he was
called to the rectorship of Christ Church in Detroit, and served there the
ten years prior to his consecration in 1886 as Bishop of Los Angeles.
Bishop Johnson married, on June 14, 1881, Isabel Greene Davis, daugh-
ter of Isaac Davis of Worcester, Alass.ichusetts. They liave one son,
Reginald Davis Johnson, an architect, with residence in Pasadena.
In the issue of March, 1919, Pomona College Quarterly Magazine
contained as its leading article an appreciation of Bishop Johnson, writ-
ten by one who had long been associated with him in the work of his
diocese. From this article is taken the following paragraphs, since they
express an estimate that is both just and dignified :
"No one can appreciate the character and work of Bishop Johnson
who does not know that from his point of view the service of consecra-
tion represents an ideal that is anything but obsolete ; that the supreme
interest of his life through all the varied and exacting details of ad-
ministrative responsibility is the spiritual interest ; that the only success
he craves in his Episcopate is to be able, through his ministry, to make
the presence of God more real to those for whose spiritual welfare he
is especially responsible and to all with whom he comes in contact. No
one knows better than he that a bishop is placed at a certain disadvantage
with the public by reason of the necessity of devoting so much time to
the affairs of organizations and finance, religious and social conven-
tionality. There are times when he finds the religious inefifectiveness of
much that he has to do, when he would be inclined to say with Mr. Wells
in 'The Soul of a Bishop,' 'Is there any tub-rolling in the world more
busy and exacting than a bishop's ?'
"Bishop Johnson is keenly interested in Pomona College, being
vice president of the trustees of that institution since 1912, and as well
in the educational work of southern California. He is president of the
Board of Trustees of the Harvard Military School in Los Angeles, and
has established the School for Girls at La Jolla. The Hospital of the
Good Samaritan, the Church Home for Children and the Neighborhood
Settlement in Los Angeles are also under his direction.
"With the more or less direct responsibility for the management of
these institutions, the care of any one of which would constitute a man's
work ; with the supervision of ninety-eight churches of various sizes,
scattered over a territory as large in area as the state of Pennsylvania;
with the stream of requests that come to him to preside at meetings, to
serve on boards of benevolence, to lead community movements, to arbi-
trate church disputes ; with an ofifice that is the mecca for seekers of all
kinds, from the man who comes for spiritual advice to the one who
wishes to sell a book or borrow money. Bishop Johnson really has little
option as to any day's schedule. He must give himself to the duties of
the day as they pass along, regardless of their relative spiritual sig-
nificance. But the controlling and unifying factor in his work is the
spiritual perspective that regards nothing as 'common' and that holds
secular things as sacred, and makes sacred and secular ministrations
alike, the agency of spiritual influence.
"Bishop Johnson is known abroad in the community as a man of
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 173
breadth of interests, with a capacity for iiiaking friends, and adaptabiHly
to all sorts and conditions of men and all sorts and conditions of situa-
tions. He is an executive of ability, a public-spirited citizen, a leader
among men. Of all the fjualities that cause hiin to be admired, those who
are intimately associated with him in the work of his diocese are fully
aware and justly proud, but the things that mean the most to those who
are privileged to come into closest contact with the Bishop, that give
him a place apart in their affections, are the rare simplicity of his char-
acter, the humility of his spirit, the leniency of his judgments, the sunny
optimism of his dis])ositiou that finds liim at the end of the hardest day
sometimes cast down but never destroyed, the warmth and naturalness
of his friendship and, above all, the sincerity of his religious life.
"When Bishop Johnson was consecrated to the Episcopate in IS96,
this prayer was said by the bishops and the clerg}' and congregation that
was present : 'So replenish him with the truth of Thy doctrine and
adorn him with the innocency of life that, both by work and deed, he
may faithfully serve Thee in this office, to the glory of Thy name, and
the edifying and well governing of Thy Church." It seems to us who
know him from the intimacy of long association in the work of this
diocese that in I'.ishop Johnson this prayer has been singularh' fulfilled."
WiLLi.xji C. MusiiET, former city auditor of Los Angeles, and head
of the Mushet Audit Company, has for many years "been a man of
prominence in business and civic affairs and has been a resident of I^os
Angeles thirty years.
Mr. Mushet was born in Manchester, England, December 22, 1860,
a son of George and Mary Cresswell Mushet. He was graduated from
an English high school at the age of twenty, then taught school, and took
a thorough business and law training at the Victoria University. ?Ic
received his degree A. C. P., and in 1886 came to America and located
at San Francisco, where he practiced public accounting until 1889. .Vfter
that he continued his profession in Los Angeles, and built up a large and
representative clientage. In 1900 he was made secretary' of the Whole-
salers" Board of Trade and the Los Angeles Credit Men's Association.
He is still secretary of the Credit Men's Association. In 1908 Mr.
Mushet was elected city auditor. In 1910 and 1912 he was candidate for
mayor, and in 1918 he made a spirited race for Congress. He has l)ecn
active head of the Alushet Audit Company since 1910.
Mr. Musliet is one of the leading laymen of the Episcopal Church
in southern California, being treasurer of the Episcopal Diocese of Los
Angeles for the past twenty years, a member of the Board of Missions,
director of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the diocese of Los An-
geles, and chairman of finance of the diocese. He has been elected four
times to the triennial convention of the Episcopal Church, at Louisville,
New York, St. Louis and Detroit. Mr. Mushet is a Scottish Rite Mason
and Shriner, a member of the Union League Club and is a republican
in politics. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention
held in Qiicago in 1915 which nominated Hughes for president of the
United States. *
.At San Bernardino. California. October 27. 1889. he married Miss
Hattie A. Lobdell. Mrs. Mushet, who died March 12, 1919. after nearlv
thirty years of happy married life, was born at Fairfield, Connecticut,
August 27, 1864. For many years she was a prominent club woman,
being past vice president of the California Federation of Women's Clubs
and past president of the Los .Angeles District Fer^or.-'tior? of Women's
174 LOS ANGELES
Clubs, was president for two terms of the Wednesday Morning Club
and chairman of its Building Committee, was a member of the Friday
Morning and Ebell Clubs, and was very active in church work. Mr.
Mushet has three children. The oldest, Mrs. Galett M. Rindge, is a
graduate of the Girls' Collegiate School. The younger child, Isabel, is
now attending the Girls' Collegiate School. The son, William Lobdell
Mushet, born in 1898, is a graduate of the Harvard Militai-y School and
during the war served in the Navy, receiving his honorable discharge in
January, 1919. He is now on his three hundred twenty acre ranch near
Yictorville, California.
Rev. James A. Reardun, whose services in the Catholic Church has
l)een distinguislied by many responsibilities, has been the faithful and
efficient pastor of St. Anthony's parish at Long Beach since April, 1907.
Tliis parish was established in 1902 by Father Ferrer. Prior to
that time the Catholics of this community had worshiped at Wilmington,
Cahfornia. The first church was erected in 1902. In 1913, under Father
Keardcn, the cornerstone was laid for an edifice of imposing dimensions
costing a hundred thousand dollars. The late Bishop Conaty ofticiated
at the cornerstone laying. The church was dedicated Novemlier 26,
1914, by Archbishop Francisco Mendoza of Mexico, who happened to
be in California at that time. There were only twenty families in the
parish when it was organized. Most of the prosperity of the parish
falls within the time of Father Reardon's pastorate. Today there are
six hundred families, and the church is one of the most prosperous in
Long Beach.
James A. Reardon was born in Tazewell county, Illinois, June 16,
1S81. His father, John Reardon, was born in Tipperary, Ireland. June
13. 1840, and first attended the national schools of Ireland. In
1850 his parents came to America and settled at Providence, Rhode
Island, where he continued his education in the public schools. In 1857
the family moved west to Tazewell county, Illinois, where John Reardon
took up farming. He was one of the sturdy sons of Illinois whose loy-
alty needed no arousing and early in the Civil war he enlisted as a pri-
vate in Company H of the 115th Illinois Infantry. His record shows
that he was a splendid soldier. He was promoted to sergeant, second
lieutenant, first lieutenant and captain, and at the close of the war was
brevetted major for gallantry on the field. After the war he served as
L^nited States store keeper at various points.
He left the army, and on June 4, 1870, married Mary A. Murphy at
Delavan, Tazewell county. After his marriage he farmed in that county
until 1883, when he removed to Peoria and became a contractor, most
of his work being street grading. In 1888 John Reardon came to Los
Angeles, and continued as a contractor in the same line in this city
until his death January 10, 1895. He was the father of six children:
Nellie C, of Los Angeles: Genevieve, who died in 1889; John S., of
San Francisco: Frederick L., who died in 1908: James A. and Marj' G.,
of Los Angeles. '
Father Reardon was seven years old when his parents came to Los
Angeles. He attended the Cathedral parochial school, also the public
schools, including the Los Angeles High School, and in 1898 gradu-
ated from St. Vincent's College. In preparation for the priesthood he
attended St. Mary's Seminary at Baltimore, I\Iar\-land, taking the philo-
sophical and theological courses, and finishing his studies in 1904. Re-
joAAfJUXA^- KIAaMtA^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 175
turning to Los Angeles, he was ordained at the Cathedral January 6,
1905. Father Reardon was assistant pastor of St. John's Church at
Fresno until June 2, 1905, was then secretary to the late Bishop Conaty
a year and a half at Los Angeles, and for two months was acting pastor
of St. Joseph's Church at Pomona, and acting pastor of St. Joseph's
Church at San Diego until April, 1907, when he entered upon his pres-
ent duties in St. Anthony's j^arish at Long Beach. Fatiier Reardon is
a fourth degree memher of the Knights of Columbus, and a meniher of
the Sons of Veterans.
William R. Fee. The community of San Gabriel welcomed the
advent of William R. Fee not only because of his position in the busmess
world, but for the obvious advantages of his personal character and
resources. Mr. Fee has been a resident of California only a few years
and still retains many of his personal business interests in Ohio, where
he has long been identified with the ownership and management of large
public utilities and various banks and other instruments of capital.
J\Ir. Fee was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was educated in the
grammar and high schools there. He also attended the Cincinnati Col-
lege of Pharmacy. He passed a successful examination before the State
Board of Pharmacy, and was first employed in a minor capacity by the
Standard Drug Company. He worked up until he was made manager
of the city busmess of this company, during which time he operated
three retail drug stores. In 1900 he assisted in organizing the Clere-
mont Telephone Company, and thus he came into the field of public
utilities, where his work has been most conspicuous since then.
Mr. Fee was vice president and general manager of the Cleremont
County" Telephone Company until 1909. In 1903 he organized the
Citizens National Bank of Milford, Ohio, of which he was president
until 1906. Alter that his home was m Portsmouth, Ohio, where he be-
came president and general manager of the Portsmouth Telephone Com-
pany. In a remarkably short time he had built up the business of that
public utility from fifteen hundred telephone subscribers to torty-two
hundred. In 1910 he organized the Ohio Valley Bank of Portsmouth
and remained president of the institution until 1914.
JNlr. Fee gave up all his executive positions in these various con-
cerns in 1913, when he moved to Los Angeles, though retaining most of
his stock. In 1914 he organized the Bank of San Gabriel, of which he
is now president. For eight years Mr. Fee was vice president of the
Ohio State Telephone Association, and for one year was vice president
of the National Telephone Association. He was also vice president of
the Portsmouth Board of Trade and an officer in various other organiza-
tions, commercial, civic and social,' in Ohio.
July 20, 1890, at Cincinnati, he married Anna Sutton. Their only
child, Anna Louise, is now the wife of San Gabriel's city attorney, Mr.
McFadden, who is serving as captain of Company M, 140th Regiment
of Infantry, 35th Division, in France.
Homer Laughlin gained a high position in American industry as
the founder and upbuilder of the greatest pottery plant in the United
States, and when he retired from business about twenty years ago and
came to Los Angeles, his interests as a business man were not allowed
to lapse, and in this city he has used his capital and his personal influence
in many ways for the upbuilding of Los Angeles as a city.
Mr. Laughlin was born at Little Beaver, in Columbiana County,
176 LOS ANGELES
Ohio, March 23, 1843, son of Matthew and Maria (Moore) Laughlin.
The Laughhns were Scotch-Irish, who settled in colonial times in west-
ern Pennsylvania. Grandfather James Laughlin was a native of Mary-
land, but spent many years of his life in Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.
Matthew Laughlin was born in Columbiana County in 1814, and for half
a century was in the milling business on the Little Beaver River.
Homer Laughlin was educated in the common schools, in the Ne-
ville Institute, and on July 12, 1862, at the age of nineteen, enlisted at
Liverpool, Ohio, in Company A of the 115th Ohio Infantry. He is one
of the interesting veterans of that great war for freedom, and served
almost three years, until mustered out as sergeant of his company at
Cleveland July 7, 1865.
He soon afterward became interested in the pottery industry at
New York City. He and his brother, Shakespeare Moore Laughlin, be-
came wholesale importers of English earthenware. The firm of Laughlin
Brothers continued from 1871 to October, 1873. In the latter year they
built a pottery plant of their own for the manufacture of fine white
earthenware at East Liverpool, Ohio. The deserved fame of East Liver-
pool as one of the greatest pottery centers of America is in no small
degree the result of the enterprise of the Laughlin brothers. In 1879
Homer Laughlin bought out his brother's interest and continued the
Homer Laughhn China Company under his direct and personal super-
vision until 1897.
In the latter year Mr. Laughlin sold his interests in an industry;
which has continued to grow and flourish in eastern Ohio, continuing
under the name Homer Laughlin China Company. On coming to Los
Angeles JNlr. Laughlin immediately supplied a large fund of capital and
business enterprise to the needs of the city for high-class buildings. His
first monument was tlic Homer Laughlin Building on Broadway, re-
garded as the first fireproof office building in southern California. In
fact, it set a standard for fireproof construction which was not reached
generally for several years. In 1901 he erected another building a few
doors south of the Laughlin Building, on the site of the old First Meth-
odist Church. In 1905 was begun the construction of the annex to the
Homer Laughlin Building. This has the distinction of being the first
reinforced concrete Ijuilding in southern California.
Mr. Laughlin has been a figure and influence in the larger business
aft'airs of America for many years. He was for a long time president
of the United States Pottery Association, chairman of its executive com-
mittee for twenty years, and the products of his plants received medals
from the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, the Cincinnati
Exposition of 1879, and from the Columbian Exposition of Chicago in
1893. Since 1882 he has been continuously a member of the "Board of
Managers of the American Protective Tarifi' League. Mr. Laughlin
was for over thirty years an intimate friend of William McKinley, and
was president of the reception committee when President McKinley and
cabinet visited Los Angeles.
Mr. Laughlin is a prominent Mason, was a member of the First
Crusaders party of Knights Templar to Europe in 1871, is an honorary
life meml)er of Girvan Encampment of Glasgow, Knights Templar of
Scotland, a member of Allegheny Commandery No. 35, K. T. He is
a member of the Republican Club of New York and the California Club
of Los Angeles. June 18, 1875, Mr. Laughlin married Cornelia Batten-
berg of Wellsvifle, Ohio. They had three children, Homer Jr., Nanita
(deceased) and Gwendolen V.
O^'^J^S-eiAy.j^
^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 177
Edwin W. Sargent is known as the "father of the land title business
in Los Angeles," and, very appropriately, is vice president of the Title
Guarantee and Trust Company, being one of the founders of this cor-
poration and also of the Title Insurance and Trust Company.
Mr. Sargent is a lawyer of forty-five years' experience, and for
more than thirty years has been a resident of Los Angeles. He was
born at Oregon, in Dane County, Wisconsin, August 15, 1848, son of
Croydon and Lucy W. (Hutchinson) Sargent. He was reared in Wis-
consin, attended the public schools, and from 1868 to 1870 was a student
in the literary department of the University of Wisconsin. In 1873 he
entered the law department of the University of Iowa, receiving his
LL. B. degree in 1874. After being admitted to the bar by the Supreme
Court of Iowa, he practiced five years at Denison, Iowa, and from 1879
to 1886 was a lawyer at Atchison, Kansas. While at Atchison he became
known as an expert in land titles, and that experience he brought with
him to California and it became the basis of the great and enduring
reputation that he now enjoys.
Mr. Sargent came to Los Angeles in 1886, just before the great
real estate boom. Almost immediately his services were in demand by
the real estate interests as a title expert. Up to that time no guarantees
of title had ever been given in southern California, and Mr. Sargent
recognized the opportunity for the establishment of a land title guarantee
business such as he had become familiar with in the middle west.
This business in its earliest form was created by Mr. Sargent in
establishing as evidence of title in Los Angeles city and county the "cer-
tificates of title" practically in the form in which it is used today in real
estate transfers, and has been so used for thirty years.
During the real estate boom of 1887 many persons engaged in the
abstract business drove a thriving trade by searching the records by the
name index for the investigation of title, making expensive abstracts and
obtaining expensive legal opinions of lawyers upon the same. In order to
put an end to this extortionate practice, Mr. Sargent brought about the
organization of the Los Angeles Abstract Company, conceived in a spirit
of fair dealing and on a comprehensive scale, with Mr. Sargent and
several wealthy men of Los Angeles as its organizers. This company
adopted what is known as the "Property System" by following the title
to each individual piece of land by the different references that are made
by all instruments affecting the title. The company merely completed an
abstract plant in the fall of 1887, and then began making full and un-
limited certificates of title at a moderate price upon any and all real
estate in the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County.
It was the unusual legal ability brought to this company by Mr. Sar-
gent that enabled it to issue certificates of title. The community soon
learned that for a moderate price they could obtain the most competent
legal opinion that could be given on titles to real estate. These unlimited
certificates of title soon commanded the confidence of real estate dealers,
money lenders and banks, and in a few years there was a complete
change in the business of furnishing evidence of title, done quickly and
at a great deal less expense than under the former system. More credit
is due Mr. Sargent for these unlimited certificates than to any other one
person.
The Los Angeles Abstract Company soon absorbed other firms, and
in 1894 it was reorganized as the Title Insurance and Trust Company.
In 1895 Mr. Sargent retired from that institution and organized the
Title Guarantee and Trust Company. Both companies are still in exist-
178 LOS ANGELES
ence and their homes are hi two of the largest office structures in Los
Angeles. Mr. Sargent is still active in his distinctive branch of the law
profession, is considered a past authority on land ownership and titles in
southern California, and his professional services alone have been a big
contributing factor to the permanent growth and prosperity of Los
Angeles. He has been not less deeply interested in every movement for
the civic welfare, the promotion of institutions and the broad and bene-
ficient growth and power of the greater Los Angeles.
Mr. Sargent is a member of the Jonathan Club, is a Knight Templar
Mason and Shriner, and his name properly belongs among the builders
and makers of southern California.
Marsh.xll L. Carter, who was born in Iowa and received his early
business training there as a banker, has been a resident of Los Angeles
since 1901, and is an important factor in the general loan and investment
business as secretary and manager of the Carter Investment Company.
Mr. Carter is a son of Julius Carter, a veteran cattle man of the
old-time west, now living in California, and though past eighty years of
age, still enjoying an occasional scouting trip around the cattle ranches.
The Daily Drovers Journal, the great live stock paper of Chicago, in the
fall of 1918, published an interesting article on J. E. Carter, particularly
with regard to his experiences as a feeder and shipper of cattle for forty
years. He was born in Ravenna, Portage County, Ohio, November 12,
1834, and spent his boyhood in the time of tallow candles and other
primitive facilities. When he was fifteen years old his father trusted
him with a thousand dollars to go into the western counties a hundred
miles from home and buy cattle. He was highly commended by his
father when he returned from the three weeks" trip, and from that time
on he was engaged in buying and driving cattle. At the age of seven-
teen he and an older brother drove a large herd of cattle from western
Illinois to Dutchess County, New York. In 1854 he and his brother
began their operations as cattle buyers in Missouri, and they took their
first herd to Chicago in the fall of 1855, where they found only two
packers in business. They sold their cattle for three and a half cents a
pound, but made a profit even at that low price. The approach of the
Civil war put an end to their operations in 1859, and from that time
forward they made their headquarters and home in Iowa, where they
bought a section of land. Every year for twenty years he and his
brother fed from two hundred to five hundred cattle. They continued
a congenial and profitable partnership until the death of his brother in
1889, and there was a large property to divide, consisting of three thous-
and acres of land, a bank, store, lumber yard and elevator, all in Jones
and Clinton Counties, Iowa. In 1900 Mr. J. E. Carter closed out his
Iowa business and brought his family to California. Here he became
interested with his sons in real estate and land development, and has also
spent much time in travel, having visited Japan, China, the Panama
Canal, England, France and Germany. He is a member of the Octo-
genarian Club and is still a man of much physical vigor. He married, at
Kewanee, Illinois, November 12, 1867, Miss Anna Hutchinson. Three
of their children died in infancy and the other three are married and
living in California. The mother died at Oxford Junction, Iowa, in
1891. Mr. J. E. Carter now lives with his daughter, Mrs. F. C. Langdon.
Marshall L. Carter was born at Oxford Junction, in Jones County,
Iowa, July 2, 1877. He was liberally educated, attending higli school to
the age of eighteen, then entering Shattuck Military Academy at Pari-
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 179
bault, Minnesota, from which he graduated in 1897. He then became
cashier of his father's bank, the Oxford Junction Bank, but in 1901 fol-
lowed his parents to Los Angeles and for a year was a salesman and
part owner in the Hoffman hardware store. Selling his interests with
that firm, he engaged in the dental supply business with Dr. F. C. Lang-
don, his brother-in-law, under the firm name of Carter Dental Supply
Company, at 1195^ South Spring street. Three years later he disposed
of that business to engage in the loan and real estate business as secre-
tary and manager of the Carter Investment Company. Llis father for
several years was president of that company, but the president is now
the other son, J. E. Carter Jr. Mr. Marshall L. Carter is also secretary
of the Linen Laundry and Supply Company.
He is well known socially, being a York Rite Mason and Shriner,
member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Chamber of Commerce,
the Advertising Club and is a member of the Westlake Methodist Church.
Politically he is a republican. At Los Angeles, December 15, 1903, he
married Mary Elizabeth Inch. They have one son, Marshall L. Jr., born
in 1907, and a student in the Harvard Military School.
Victor H. Rossetti. The Los Angeles financial and civic com-
munity chose Victor H. Rossetti as a successful banker, a man of dis-
tinctive leadership and personality, who has accepted many opportunities
and responsibilities for broad and patriotic service. Not many years
ago he was a hard-working minor clerk in a San Francisco bank, and he
knows as well as the next man what it means to live independently,
though on a scale of modest and self-respecting poverty.
He was born in Virginia City, Nevada, February 19, 1877, son of
Alexander and Madeline (Bassetti) Rossetti. As the place of his birth
would indicate, his father was at one time connected with some of the
centers of mining activity in the far west. Alexander Rossetti was born
at Biasca, Switzerland, July 15, 1837. He attended the public schools
there, and on March 12, 1858, left his native land and came to California
by way of the Isthmus of Panama. He reached San Francisco June 5th
of the same year, and for three years was a miner in Matt Canyon, in
Calaveras County. In 1861 he removed to Placerville, where he con-
tinued mining, and in 1862 was one of the pioneers in the new mining
district of Virginia City, Nevada. For several years he operated a hotel
there and then resumed mining. He finally retired in 1898 and lived in
San Francisco until 1914, then at Santa Barbara until January 1, 1919,
and has since been a resident of Los Angeles. At Virginia City, Septem-
ber 8, 1870, Alexander Rossetti married Madeline Bassetti. She was
born at Locarno, Switzerland, October 12, 1850. She left her native land
August 17, 1868, reached San Francisco the 3rd of October, and on the
6th of the same month arrived in Virginia City, Nevada, where about a
year and a half later she became a bride. She and her husband were
the parents of eight children, seven of whom are still living.
Victor H. Rossetti graduated from the high school of Virginia City
in 1893. A youth of sixteen, he sought opportunity in San Francisco,
where he was employed as messenger boy for the Wells-Fargo & Com-
pany Bank. He attracted attention by his eagerness and enthusiasm and
diligence and was promoted to various responsibilities until he became
chief clerk. In 1905 the Wells-Fargo & Company Bank was consolidated
with the Nevada National Bank under the name Wells-Fargo Nevada
National Bank. Mr. Rossetti then continued with the consolidated in-
stitution in the same capacity until 1907, when he was elected assistant
cashier.
180 LOS ANGELES
Mr. Rossetti became a member of the Los Angeles financial com-
munity when he accepted the post of cashier of the Farmers & Merchants
National Bank on July 1, 1911. July 1^ 1917, he was made cashier, di-
rector and vice president of this, one of the largest financial institutions
of southern California. He is also vice president and director of the
Sun Drug Company, a director of the Ville de Pans Store, a director of
the National Chemical Company, treasurer and director of the Yellow
Aster Mining and Milling Company, a director of the Frank Graves
Sash, Door and Mill Company, and a director of the Morris Plan Com-
pany of Los Angeles. He is a member of the Los Angeles Securities
Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and a mem-
ber of the Executive Committee of Group Five, California Bankers'
Association.
In addition to his work as a private citizen in behalf of patriotic
movements during the war, he was an executive for the Fuel Administra-
tion of California and a member of the Los Angeles Division of the
Council of Defense. Mr. Rossetti is a member of the California CluD, is
a Republican in politics and a member of the Catholic Church. On June
20, 1906, at San Francisco, he married Irene Silvestri. Mrs. Rossetti
was born at San Francisco. . They have one daughter, Eleanor Mae,
born at Lo^ Angeles February 1, 1919.
Antonio Orfila is a prominent Los Angeles lawyer, has been a
member of the bar over thirty years, and has earned many of the solid
distinctions of his profession and of citizenship.
He comes of a long line of ancestors prominent both for their in-
tellectual attainments and social standing. Mr. Orfila was born in Los
Angeles May 13, 1865. His father was Antonio Orfila Sr., a native of
the city of Mahon, Balearic Islands, on the Mediterranean, a Spanish
subject. The grandfather, Bartolome Mateo Orfila, achieved fame and
scholarship that made him known around the world. He was author of
many leading medical works, particularly on medical jurisprudence. He
was liberally educated, attending the L^niversity of Paris, and for a
number of years and until his death was president of that great institu-
tion. The Orfila homestead adjoined that of the Serra family, where
Padre Junipero, the founder of the California Missions, was born. Both
families were closely allied, and the present generations remain on terms
of intimacy.
Antonio Orfila Sr. came to California in the early '50s, locating
first in San Francisco and later moving to Santa Barbara, where he
married Maria Antonio Dominguez. In 1862 they came to Los Angeles,
where they have since lived. Antonio Sr. was engaged in the mercantile
business for a long period of years. The Orfila family is distinguished
by its longevity. With few exceptions all the members of several genera-
tions have attained ripe age, none living less than ninety years.
Antonio Orfila Jr. was educated in the public schools of Los An-
.i;eles, attending hi,s,h school, and later enterino- St. Vincent College,
when it was located at Sixth and Hill streets. He concluded his studies
there in 1884 with the highest honors of his class, graduating cum laude
and receiving the first gold medal of excellency. While in high school
and college Mr. Orfila practically paid his own way, working at any
honorable occupation that would furnish means to carry out his ambitious
scheme for a higher education. After graduating he studied law in dif-
ferent offices, and in 1886, at the early age of twenty-one, was admitted
to practice both in the state and federal courts. He practiced law in
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 181
Los Angeles for several years, and in 1897 removed to Tucson, Arizona,
where he had his home and offices until 1907. Since then he has been
located in Los Angeles and has a large practice.
Mr. Orfila is past grand chief ranger for the state of California in
the Order of Foresters of America, and was also a member of the Law
Committee of the Supreme Session at Portland, Maine, and Atlantic City,
New Jersey. He is affiliated with the Native Sons of California, the
United Ancient Order of Druids, the Independent Order of Foresters,
the Gamut Club, and in politics is independent. At Los Angeles, May 1,
1887, he married Miss Eliza Elwell of San Buena Ventura. Eight chil-
dren were born to their marriage, most of them natives of Los Angeles.
Orestes is now United States consul at Mazatlan, Mexico. Elinor, wife
of Mr. M. Levy, lives in Los Angeles. Antonio Jr. is in the automobile
business, being assistant manager of the Stutz Company. Mauricio now
lives at Tucson, Arizona. Ernest is a graduate of the University of
Southern California and was admitted to the bar in June, 1918, but
almost immediately entered the naval service of the United States, and
in December, 1918, was honorably released and is now associated with
his father in the general practice of law. The younger children, all at
home, are : Ella, Azalia and Guadalupe. Mrs. Orfila's grandmother,
Senora Cipriana Llanos de Flores, is one of the interesting figures of
Santa Barbara, having passed the age of one hundred, and is still in
possession of all her mental faculties. She is the widow of General
Flores, distinguished in the Mexican era of California.
Maximilian Frederick Ihmsen. Sometimes bankers take credit
to themselves for the great stream of money that flows through their
hands, and publishers might similarly pride themselves on the volume and
importance of another form of wealth, the news and daily record of life
and afifairs in the world which runs its current through the implements
and machinery of the fourth estate. As publisher of the Los Angeles
Examiner since February, 1909, Mr. Ihmsen has directed one of the
largest and most complete news gathering and distributing organs of the
southwest, and has given that paper many exclusive triumphs that serve
to distinguish it among the chain of Hearst papers.
Mr. Ihmsen, however, is more than a publisher. Thirty years ago
he was doing his first reportorial work on a paper in his native city of
Pittsburgh. For a number of years he lived the dramatic life of one
close to the big events of the world, gained distinction after distinction
as a special correspondent, and as political correspondent and editor had
a place all his own in the east for many years.
Mr. Ihmsen was born at Pittsburgh, March 14, 1868, son of Fred-
erick Lorenz and Josephine (Darr) Ihmsen. He is a member of one of
the oldest families of western Pennsylvania. The firm of Ihmsen &
Company was in existence more than a century and established and
operated the first glass factory west of the Allegheny Mountains, founded
by his great-grandfather, Charles Ihmsen, in 1787.
Mr. Ihmsen was liberally educated, attending the schools of Alle-
gheny, Pennsylvania, graduating from high school in 1886 and finishing
his college work in the Pittsburgh Catholic College.
After about a year as clerk in the Pittsburgh postoffice he went to
work as a reporter on the Pittsburgh Leader in 1888, and the following
.year joined the staff of the Pittsburgh Post. One of the Greatest Amer-
ican tragedies in the last century was the Johnstown flood of May, 1889.
Mr. Ihmsen was the first newspaper man to reach the source of that
182 LOS ANGELES
disaster, and, as the first observer on the ground, was able to give to the
world an authentic report as to the cause of the catastrophe. By the
time he was twenty-one years old his reporting was given world-wide
publicity and his resourcefulness had attracted the attention of the larger
newspaper worl^.
In 1890 he was sent to Washington as correspondent for the Pitts-
burgh Post, and the next year became a member of the Washington stafif
of the New York Herald. In 1893 he was transferred to New York as
political reporter for the Herald, and in a short time had a personal
acquaintance with all the big political leaders and was showing the
greatest skill in diagnosing and reporting political conditions.
When William Randolph Hearst entered the New York newspaper
field in 1895, he engaged Mr. Ihnisen to represent the New York Journal
at Albany, and the following year he was called to New York City as
city editor of the Journal. In 1898, after the Maine was blown up, Mr.
Ihmsen returned to Washington in charge of the bureau of the Hearst
publications. In the weeks preceding the declaration of war upon Spain
the responsibilities and opportunities of his office at Washington were of
the most delicate and important nature. The news dispatches which
were furnished by his bureau to the Hearst papers stood in a class by
themselves. Compared with other correspondence from the same source,
they seemed like daring prophecy, but their accuracy was invariably es-
tablished, and it was at that time that the reputation of the Hearst news-
papers for profound insight into international diplomacy was achieved.
Mr. Ihmsen was in charge of the bureau at Washington during Mr.
Hearst's celebrated fight for the abrogation of the Claj'ton-Bulwer treaty
and the' immediately preceding fight for the right of the United States
to fortify the Panama Canal and absolutely control it, as finally voiced
in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
Mr. Ihmsen has always regarded as the most gratifying single in-
cident of his newspaper life his dispatch announcing the intention of
the United States to intervene with military force in China during the
Boxer rebellion. That news was far in advance of apparent develop-
ments, and its accuracy was denied in many responsible quarters both
in America and in Europe for several weeks.
In 1901 Mr. Ihmsen went back to his duties as city editor of the
Journal, and a year later became political editor of the New York
American, founded at that time by Mr. Hearst. He continued active as
editor and as a valuable associate and ally of Mr. Hearst in politics in
the east until 1908, when Mr. Hearst sent him to Los Angeles to take
charge of the Examiner. Since then he has been managing director of
every department of this great newspaper.
Mr. Ihmsen has been a political, newspaper and business associate
of Mr. Hearst for over twenty years. He was one of the originators of
the movement for the nomination of Mr. Hearst for president of the
United States at the Democratic National Convention of 1904, and was
in personal charge of the Hearst interests on the floor of the convention.
In 1905 he organized the Municipal Ownership League of New York,
and in the same year managed Mr. Hearst's campaign as candidate of
that party for mayor of New York City. It is generally conceded that
Mr. Hearst was actually elected to this office, though he was counted out
by the Tammany organization. In 1906 Mr. Ihmsen aided in organizing
the Independence League and was chairman of its state committee during
the New York campaign for governor of that year. While directing
political forces of such magnitude it was perhaps inevitable that some
P^ROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 183
of the voltage of politics would strike Mr. Ihmsen himself. Thus, in
1907, he reluctantly accepted the urgency of the Independent League and
many Republican leaders to become candidate for sheriff of New i^ork
County on a fusion ticket. This ticket was defeated by the Tammany
organization as a result of similar tactics employed in the election of
1905. Mr. Ihmsen ran considerably ahead of his ticket and polled over
a hundred twenty thousand votes. From 1900 to 1904 Mr. Ihuisen was
secretary of the National Association of Democratic Clubs, and in 1902
was a member of the executive committee of the National Democratic
Congressional Committee.
During the last ten years Los Angeles could count upon no better
informed, more forceful or public spirited citizen in every worthy under-
taking than Mr. Ihmsen. He is interested in the city and southern Cali-
fornia personally, as well as through the great institution of which he is
managing director He is a member of the California, Jonathan, Los
Angeles Country and Los Angeles Athletic Clubs of Los Angeles. March
17, 1894, Mr. Ihmsen married Angelina Arado of New York City.
St. \'incent"s College, now known as Loyola College, was the
pioneer institution of higher education in southern California, and has
been closely associated for the upbuilding of Los Angeles for over half
a century. The story of its founding, its struggles, and the stages of its
growth properly belongs in this publication.
In the spring of 1865 the Visitor of the Congregation of the Mis-
sion, Very Rev. S. V. Ryan, afterward Bishop of Buffalo, sent to south-
ern California the Revs. John Asmuth, C. M., M. Rubio, C. M., and J.
Beaky, C. M., to open a school. After investigating the condition of
affairs, these men reported unfavorably upon the plan and departed. But
they were soon to return, thanks to the zeal of many good Catholics. In
the summer of 1865 these pioneer priests, accompanied by Very Rev. J.
McGill, C. M., returned to Los Angeles. By the Plaza, 'then the heart
of Los Angeles, they planted the standard of Christian education in
southern California. With the sturdiness and devotion of the Franciscan
of old, and with the generous help of a benefactor, they bore that stand-
ard aloft amid many vicissitudes. In December, 1865, Father Asmiith
passed awa>-, and a few months later Father Beaky. Failure seemed to
stare the remaining priests m the face, until Providence laid at the com-
mand of the young institution the generous gift of a noble gentleman,
the late O. W. Childs. Mr. Childs presented the Fathers with a splendid
site of some ten acres in what were then the suburbs of Los Angeles.
For the improvement of this site the Fathers were aided by funds from
many of the prominent families of that day, and Los Angeles County
contributed a thousand dollars, and the city government live hundred
dollars to the fund. Other workers were also sent from the Congrega-
tion of the jNIission in the persons of Rev. T. O'Leary, Rev. M. O'Brien,
Rev. J. More and Rev. F. Guedry, who arrived in 1867.
August 15, 1867, was a day of general observance in Los Angeles,
when, in the presence of a large concourse of people, Bishop Amat laid
the cornerstone of the new building, which stood until a few years ago
at the southeast corner of Sixth and Hill streets. In March of the fol-
lowing year the solid brick structure, one of the finest in southern Cali-
fornia, was ready for use, and on the 17th of that month the faculty and
students moved to their new home. August 15, 1869, the college received
its charter from the state of California, being granted the privileges of k
university.
184 LOS ANGELES
In its new home St. Vincent's throve under the successive adminis-
trations of Father McGill and Rev. M. V. Richardson, C. M., who suc-
ceeded him, until in 1883 the demands of the students required the erec-
tion of an additional wing to the first building. In 1884 Father Rich-
ardson was succeeded as president by the late Very Rev. A. J. Meyer,
CM., and under the mastery of that gentle hand old St. Vincent's was
recognized as a potent factor in the educational life of southern Cali-
fornia. Growth and expansion were the order of the day under his ad-
ministration.
In the winter of 1886 the school was moved from its old location on
Sixth street, between Broadway and Hill, to the new home established
at Grand avenue and Washington street. In February, 1887, the new
college was formally opened, but even so its capacity was soon taxed by
the increasing number of students who were attracted by its faculty and
its strong and gentle president. Thereafter, keeping pace with the mar-
velous growth of Los Angeles, adapting itself and its forces to the situa-
tion created by a metropolis, St. Vincent's constantly aimed to bestow
upon youth the education that the experience and accomplishments of
years can furnish. Along with the purely secular work of the institution
was combined religious and moral teaching.
The death of Father Meyer, February 12, 1898, brought to the
presidency Rev. J. A. Linn, C. M., who had formerly for several years
been a member of the college faculty. Father Lmn in turn was suc-
ceeded in 1901 by Rev. Dr. Joseph S. Glass, C. M., the present Bishop
of Salt Lake City. After an administration of ten years. Dr. Glass and
the Vincentian Fathers relinquished the work to the Jesuit Fathers, who
opened their school on West Avenue 52, in Highland Park, in several
bungalows and a temporary class building. Rev. R. A. Gleeson, S. J.,
now Provincial of the California Province of the Society of Jesus, was
the first president under the Jesuit regime. He was succeeded in 1914
by Rev. W. J. Deeney, S. J., who in turn gave place in 1915 to Rev.
Frederick A. Ruppert, S. J.
Under the presidency of Father Ruppert expansion was the order
of the day. A fine tract of land on West Sixteenth street was secured,
and there in a commanding location the first of what is to be a splendid
group of college buildings was erected in the spring of 1917. The war
has necessarily delayed further work, but the college is prepared to
continue with its plans when conditions shall warrant.
Emilio C. Orteg,\ is a prominent and well-known Los Angeles busi-
ness man, founder and proprietor of the pioneer Chili Packing Com-
pany, now the Ortega Chili Cannery, at the corner of Sixth and Santa Fe
avenue. His business associates him closely with the everyday and
modern life of southern California. But his own life and his family
history goes far back into the dim past of this part of the state. His
relationship to the old days of southern California, ante-dating the Amer-
ican occupation, may best be told by quoting some of the paragraphs
that appeared in the Ventura Weekly Democrat of Friday, May 28, 1909.
The main article concerned the death and funeral of his venerable
mother, and the caption of the article read : "Was a mother, grandmother,
great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother." The article said in
part as follows: "The remains of the late Dona Concepcion Ortega were
laid to final rest in hallowed ground in the Catholic Cemetery yesterday
morning. The solemn and impressive obsequies were held at the Old
Mission, high requiem mass being celebrated. The services were con-
■^
^onccpctcn pomint^urx ttc ^rtc^a
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 185
ducted by Father Grogan, and the attendance of former neighbors and
friends was large, in addition to the mourning relatives, three genera-
tions being represented. The Father spoke briefly, but earnestly and with
much feeling, of the Christian life and character of the deceased.
"In compliance with a request made some time previous to the death
of the aged mother, the loving hands of her five sturdy sons, Ramon,
Juan, Theodore, Emilio and Victor, with a grandson, J. D. Reyes, acted
as pallbearers, bearing the remains to the ancient Mission where she had
faithfully worshipped for more than half a century, and also deposited
all that was mortal in the narrow house of clay overlooking the city and
sea.
"To recount the historical facts associated with the life and family
of this good woman would require a volume. Back through the long
vista of years in the march of time covering nearly a century from the
cradle to the grave, there have been hardships, happiness and sorrow.
Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchil-
dren have brightened her life, in age ranging from seventy-six years to
the prattling babe in arms.
"Deceased was the daughter of Jose Dominguez, and first saw the
light of day in Santa Barbara December 8, 1811. Her father was the
trusted overseer for the Mission Fathers of the ancient Rancho Todas
Santos, and was murdered by the Indians during a raid in 1821.
"At the age of twenty-one she was united to Don Miguel Emigdio
Ortega, a member of one of the most distinguished families of the earliest
Miss' on days, whose great-grandfather was Captain Jose Maria Ortega,
the father of the Santa Barbara branch of the Ortega family, who was
commandante of a company of cavalry at Loreta. His wife was Ignacia
Carrillo, to whom were bom seven children, one of whom, Juan, was
the father of the husband of the subject of this sketch. With the mar-
riage union of the sons and daughters of Jose Maria Ortega, and their
descendants, was formed relationships with all the leading families asso-
ciated with the earliest history of Santa Barbara, notable among the
list being the Olibera, Arguello, Dela Guerra, Ramirez, Arrellanes, Tico,
Hill, Den, More and O'Neill families, all of whom were concerned in
the history surrounding the Mission Fathers and the vast ranchos of
their day and generation.
"Probably in all of California no other woman, at death, was
mourned by as large a family of direct descendants as Dona Concepcion
Ortega, who was surrounded by three generations. She was the mother
of thirteen sons and daughters, nine of whom survive her. There are
now living (1909) forty-five grandchildren, seventy-two great-grand-
children, and five grent-great-grandchildren, a family total of 131.
"Many years of her life in this city, up to a few years ago, were
passed in the old adobe homestead at the foot of Main street, on the
river bank, and has long occupied a place among the more interesting
landm-rks of Ventura. Its reproduction on paper has been viewed by
thousands throughout the United States, foreign lands and the islands of
the sea, as it is the accepted trademark of E. C. Ortega, founder and
sole owner of the Pioneer Chili Packing Company of Los Angeles, the
product of which industry reached every country and clime. It was a
home of openhanded hospitality and good cheer.
"In the early days Mrs. Ortega was much alone, her husband being
the chief overseer of various Mission ranches and properties of the south-
ern portion of the state. She reared her large family with a kind and
attentive hand, and the devoted care given her during her declining years
186 LOS ANGELES
in return by them proved a self-satisfying reward, and is also a testi-
monial to her many motherly virtues. May her soul rest in peace eternal,
and the memory of her life long cherished in the hearts and minds of
those left behind, till the final call of the Master."
Emilio C. Ortega, a son of Miguel Emidio and Concepcion (Domin-
guez) Ortega, was born at Ventura August 8, 1857. He was educated
in the public school, also the Franciscan Fathers College at Santa Bar-
bara, from which he graduated in 1873, and for one year attended
Healds Business College at San Francisco. His business career began
as a clerk in Samuels' silk house at San Francisco. A year later, return-
ing to Ventura, he bought a grocery store, and was its proprietor four
years. Selling out, he became manager of the L. Vignave Company at
Bakersfield four years, and then was a rancher in San Diego County
until 1890. Following that came an experience as manager and stock-
holder in the Esmeralda Rancho in Valencia County, New Mexico. Dis-
posing of his interests there in 1893, Mr. Ortega became assistant super-
intendent to the general superintendent of the Atlantic & Pacific Rail-
way at Alberquque for one year. Ill health caused his resignation and
retirement, and for several years he was again engaged in farming at
Ventura.
It was in 1899 that Mr. Ortega founded the chili canning business,
through the growth and development of which his name now means
so much to Los Angeles. His start was a very crude one, with meager
facilities. The chief instrument of his business at the beginning was a
roaster worked by hand. -Later he improved a roaster, which he pat-
ented. In 1900 he moved his plant to Los Angeles, locating at 811
Stephens avenue. In 1901 he removed to 348 South Alameda street, and
in 1905 bought the corner at Sixth and Santa Fe, ground 280x140 feet.
This property is now covered with one and two-story buildings com-
prising his plant, probably the largest in the western United States. The
plant is equipped with modern machinery, and has a capacity of one
hundred fifty cans per minute. The company manufactures a general
line of chili products, employs about four hundred people, and whereas
the first year's business am'ounted to about a thousand dollars, th^ value
of manufactured products at present aggregates two hundred fifty thou-
sand dollars a year.
Mr. Ortega is a member of the Rotary Club, Merchants and Manu-
facturers' Association. Credit Men's Association, National Canners' As-
sociation, Southern California Canners' Association, and the Los An-
geles Chamber of Commerce. He is a republican in politics and a
member of the Catholic church. February 22, 1901, he married in Los
Angeles, Angelina Alexander.
William Fr.\ncis Edgar, M. D. Like many of the early settlers
of California, the late Dr. Edgar was a man of cosmopolitan experiences
and tastes, and as an army surgeon spent many years at eastern posts of
duty, though the happiest period of his life was passed in southern
California.
Eminent in his profession, lie was naturally drawn into the army
through his early associations with the frontier and with army officials,
and doubtless also because of the military antecedents in his own an-
cestry. One of his grandfathers was a captain of hght artillery in the
Revolutionary war, while the other was a captain of infantry in the
War of 1812. His paternal grandfather passed on his military spirit to
his son, William Hamilton Edgar, who at the age of seventeen enlisted
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 187
from his native state of Virginia and was a soldier in the War of 1812.
He then settled in Kentucky, later went to Missouri, and distinguished
himself as a man of forceful character and of great energy. The last
j'cars of his life were spent under California skies, and he died in San
Bernardino County in 1866. His widow then made her home with her
son William in Drum Barracks, near Wilmington, until her death two
years later. There were four children, the only daughter dying in in-
fancy. One son was a lawyer and died at Los Angeles in 1862 ; an-
other died in 1874 at the Edgar Rancho, at San Gorgonio, California.
Dr. William Francis Edgar was born on a farm in Jessamine County,
Kentucky, in March, 1823. At the age of eight years he began making
the daily journey back and forth between his home and the log cabin
schoolhouse three miles distant. When the family located in Missouri
he enjoyed better privileges, completing his literary education in the
Bonne Femme College. After the panic of 1837 the family moved to
St. Joseph, then a pioneer post on the Upper Missouri River. Early in
life he had some associations with army surgeons, which determined his
choice of a profession. He earned his own living while at St. Joseph
as clerk in a drug store, and applied every spare hour to the study of
medicine and chemistry. Later he entered the Medical Department of
the University of Louisville, where he was graduated with high honors
in 1848. He was a pupil under Professor Samuel Gross. At the be-
ginning of the second session of his college career he and two fellow
students were appointed assistant demonstrators of anatomy, an appoint-
ment he held until he entered the army.
After graduating in medicine he presented himself before the Army
Board in New York and, out of scores of candidates, he was one of four
to successfully pass the rigid test. He was appointed an assistant sur-
geon in the United States Army in the spring of 1849 at Jefferson Bar-
racks, and was iirst assigned to duty in Fort Leavenworth. He went
into the army at a peculiarly strenuous and romantic period in the de-
velopment of the west, when California was achieving its fame, and soon
after the tide of settlement had begun to the northwestern states and
territories. From Fort Leavenworth he was transferred to Oregon,
and traveled by steamer to old Fort Kearney. While en route the Asiatic
cholera broke out among the passengers, and Dr. Edgar had little leisure,
devoting himself without fear of personal risk to the needs and neces-
sities of his fellow travelers. Later he spent some time at Vancouver,
at The Dalles in Oregon, and in the spring of 1851, under changes in-
stituted by the government, came under the command of Major Philip
Kearny, with headc|uarters at Sonoma, California. While in Sonoma
Dr. Edgar became associated with men afterward famous in history,
especially Joseph Stooker and George Stoneman. He was also stationed
for a short time at Fort Miller, in the Yosemite Valley, and toward the
close of 1853 was ordered to Fort Reading, at the present town of Read-
ing, in Shasta County. For four years he had labored and exposed him-
self without limit in his profession, and his weakened constitution made
him an easy prey to the malarial conditions of his new post. One night
he rose from his bed, ill with malaria fever, to attend a professional call,
and returning to his quarters, fell unconscious, stricken with paralysis.
He was relieved from duty, and after careful nursing at the home of a
friend in the Tejon Valley he so far recovered that by the following
March he was able to walk. After three months, part of which was
spent in Kentucky and Missouri, he reported for duty at Jefferson Bar-
racks, Missouri, and was assigned to the Second United States Cavalry
188 LOS ANGELES
Corps. With that organization he made the acquaintance of other mih-
tary men whose names shine with pecuhar luster in American history,
including Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, William J. Hardee and
George H. Thomas. For a brief time he was on duty in Texas, was
then sent to Fort Meyers, Florida, and in the latter part of 1856 was
ordered to New York, and the next year was again given duty at Fort
Miller, California, under the command of Captain Ord.
In November, 1861, Dr. Edgar was ordered to report to Wash-
ington, and was among the last regular troops to leave the Pacific Coast.
During the Civil war he was a surgeon with the rank of major. He was
assigned to General Buell's command in Kentucky, and reorganized and
had charge of the General Hospital at Louisville. No branch of the
service in an army in a great war entails more exhausting duties than
that of the medical stafif. Dr. Edgar's health again failed, and, against
his wishes, he was relieved from duty and assigned to the medical di-
rector's office in the Department of the East, with headquarters at New
York.
At New York, March 8, 1866, in the Church of the Nativity, he
married Miss Catherine Laura Flennifick. It was with peculiar pleasure,
heightened by the memories of earlier associations, that Dr. Edgar ac-
cepted his next orders to return to California, where his parents had
also located. With the exception of a few years of private practice at
Los Angeles, Dr. Edgar spent the remaining years of his professional
career at Drum Barracks. While there he purchased a large ranch at
San Gorgonio, in San Bernardino* County. This ranch was managed
by his brother, Francis Marion, until his death in 1874, at which time
Dr. Edgar took personal charge of the property. He sold part of it in
1881, and in 1886 sold the remainder to the San Gorgonio Investment
Company. For many years Dr. Edgar was a familiar and greatly be-
loved citizen of Los Angeles, and in Los Angeles he found opportunities
to express many of the desires of his public spirit and native generosity.
He was an active member of the County Medical Society, the Southern
California Historical Society, the Library Association of Los Angeles,
the first agricultural society of the county and its successor, the Sixth
District Agricultural Association, and was a member of the Main Street
and Agriculture Park Railroad Association, ser\-ing as a director of the
last named for more than five years.
Dr. Edgar died August 23, 1897, when in his seventy-fifth year.
John F. Vordermark. The business activities by which he is best
known in southern California connect Mr. Vordermark with the estab-
lishment and executive direction of several w 11-known independent gaso-
line manufacturing companies. He had a wide range of business service
and experience before coming west, and a.mong other distinctions is a
veteran of the Spanish-American war and son of a veteran of the Union
Army.
Mr. Vordermark was born at Fort Wayne, Indiana, November 6,
1876. His grandfather, Ernest Vordermark, was an American frontiers-
man, and established a home at Fort Wayne when it was only an Indian
post, more than a century ago. Later he entered the shoe business at
that city, and continued it actively for fifty-two years. John W. Vorder-
mark, father of John F., was born at Fort Wayne in 1838, was educated
there, and during the Civil war served in the 11th Indiana Battery of
Light Artillery. Following the war he took up the shoe business as
successor to his father and retired in 1890. He died in 1906. He was
^irtu^^X
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 189
a member of the Masonic Order and a republican. At Lafayette, Indi-
ana, in 1872, he married Louise Quint.
John F. Vorderniark attended grammar and high schools at Fort
Wayne to the age of sixteen, and then worked in the construction depart-
ment of the Western Union Telegraph Company, but in 1894, at the age
of eighteen, was appointed a letter carrier to the Fort Wayne pcstoffice.
He left that service in the spring of 1898 to enlist in the 28th Indiana
Battery Light Artillery, and served as senior gunner corporal. He was
honorably discharged from the service October 31, 1898, and resumed his
position as letter carrier at Fort Wayne, but only for six months. His
first independent business enterprise was as a restaurant proprietor for
two years. He sold out and used his experience as a dining car con-
ductor with the Pennsylvania for three years. He then relocated at
Ft. Wayne, bought a restaurant, and while still proprietor of that he
opened in 1907 the Victoria Hotel, at Gary, Indiana, one of the early
hotels of that thriving industrious city.
Mr. Vordermark sold out his Indiana interests in 1909 and came
to Los Angeles to act as assistant manager of the Scranton Life Insur-
ance Company. He retired from the insurance field in 1910 and organ-
ized the Pacific Gasoline Company, of which he became secretary and
manager. This company had the distinction of being the first in Cali-
fornia to manufacture gasoline out of natural gas. In 1912 Mr. Vorder-
mark sold his interests with the Pacific Company and organized the
Olinda Gasoline Company, with a plant in Orange County. He is still
president and manager of that company, and in 1916 also organized the
Sunset Gasoline Company, with plant near Taft, and he is president and
manager of this corporation.
Mr. Vordermark is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, an Odd
Fellow, a member of the Spanish-American War Veterans, of the Los
Angeles Athletic Club, the Altodena Country Club, is a Republican and
a member of the Christian Science Church. Mr. Vordermark has an
interesting country home near San Gabriel, where his grounds are divided
between orchard and a poultry farm. He married, at Los Angeles,
August 12, 1915, Rachael Elizabeth Harper.
Eli p. Clark. Los Angeles citizens of the present generation
hardly need any reminder of the numerous big works and achievements
that stand as credit to the career of Eli P. Clark. One of the most
conspicuous and recent is the great Clark Hotel, an eleven-story structure
that was completed in 1913, and is regarded as the largest re-enforced
concrete hotel on the Pacific Coast.
Mr. Clark became identified with Los Angeles at a critical and
vital time in its history. In 1891 he joined his brother-in-law. General
Sherman, at Los Angeles and began developing, rehabilitating and ex-
tending the electric railway systems in and around the city. A.t that
time Los Angeles had forty thousand inhabitants, aiid was on the
verge of civic bankruptcy due to the great financial depression follow-
ing the collapse of the boom of 1887.
The first big achievement to their credit was the organization of
the Los Angeles Consolidated Electric Railway Company, now the Los
Angeles Railway, with General Sherman as president and Mr. Clark
vice president and active manager. All the local lines were consolidated
under this organization in 1894. Mr. Clark then acquired the local horse
power lines in Pasadena, and in 1895 the Pasadena and Los Angeles
Interurban was in operation. The same year saw the beginning of the
190 LOS ANGELES
line between Santa Monica and Los Angeles, known as the Los Angeles
Pacific Railway. This was opened for traffic April 1, 1896. Mr. Clark
continued as its president and manager until the fall of 1909, when the
property was sold to the Southern Pacific Company. Under Mr. Clark
and General Sherman it became one of the finest suburban railroads in
the country, and served to build up the entire foothill country from Los
Angeles to the sea. Mr. Clark also planned and secured the property
and rights of way for a subwa>', which when constructed will be the
first in Los Angeles.
It was the building of the first electric railway that started Los
Angeles toward a new goal of aspiration and prosperity. It is not too
much to say that this was one of the main factors in producing within
less than a quarter of a centur}' the modern Los Angeles, one of the
leadihg cities of the United States. The broad results of rapid transit
facilities inaugurated by Mr. Clark and General Sherman are to be
seen in the greater Los Angeles, occupying three times the original area
of the city and thickly populating the entire region for miles around the
older city.
Aside from his big achievements in Los Angeles and up and down
the Pacific Coast the career of Eli P. Clark is interesting for manv other
reasons. He was country born and country bred and came to manhood
in one of the smaller cities of the state of Iowa. He was born near Iowa
City November 25, 1847, son of Timothy B. and Elvira E. (Calkin)
Clark. When he was eight years old his parents removed to Grinnell,
Iowa, where he attended the public schools and also Iowa College. At
the age of eighteen he taught a term of school. In 1867 he accompa-
nied the family to southwest Missouri, where he continued teaching in
the winter and farming with his father in the summer.
Mr. Clark became a true southwesterner when in 1875 he ..-rossed
the plains with a team to Prescott, Arizona, making the journey in
nearlv three months. At Prescott he first met his brother-in-law, Gen-
eral M. H. Sherman. At Prescott he was a merchant and for one year
was acting postmaster. In 1878 he became associated with A. D. Adams
under the firm name of Clark & Adams, lumber merchants. In 1877
he had been appointed territorial auditor for Arizona, and filled that
oflice five terms, ten years. While in that position he formed a friend-
ship with General John C. Fremont, then governor of Arizona.
The experience and the vision which subsequently made him so im-
portant a factor in the railway situation around Los Angeles were ac-
quired while living at Prescott. He aided materially in the passage of
a bill by the Legislature in 1885 granting a subsidy for a railroad to be
built from Prescott to connect with the Atlantic and Pacific Railway at
Seligman, Arizona. He was one of the organizers and secretary and
treasurer of the original company. Within a year after the plans had
been completed the Prescott & Arizona Railroad was in successful op-
eration, and ten years later it was succeeded by the Santa Fe, Prescott
& Phoenix Railway.
A more recent achievement in railway construction credited to Mr.
Clark was organizing in 1906 the Mount Hood Railway & Power Com-
pany at Portland. Oregon-. Under his management as president of the
company this project was pushed rapidly to completion, and after seeing
if in successful operation Mr. Clark sold his interests. After that time
Mr. Clark and General Sherman separated their principal properties and
retired from the railroad field, and ^Tr. Clark has since devoted himself
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 191
to liis private investments, one of which has been noted at the be-
ginning of this article. He has also been president of the Clark & Sher-
man Land Company, a holding company, vice president of the Main
Street Company, and president of the Sinaloa Land Company.
Some of his social and civil connections are as a memher of the
California Club, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the University Club, the
First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, of which he has served
as president of the Board of Trustees, and has been a trustee for
Pomona College and of the Young Men's Christian Association of Los
Angeles. At "Prescott, Arizona, April 8, 1880, Mr. Clark married Miss
Lucy H. Sherman. Thev had four children: Mrs. Catherine Clark
Barnard, Mrs. INLnry Clark Eversole, Miss Lucy Mason Clark and Eu-
gene Payson Clark.
Tou C. Thornton. The state of Texas lost one of its ablest law-
yers when Tom C. Thornton moved from the Lone Star commonwealth
to Los Angeles in 1900. At Los Angeles Mr. Thornton has continued
his splendid work as a lawyer, and is also prominent in other business
affairs, especially as president of the Los Angeles Title Insurance Com-
pany.
He was born at Huntsville, Texas, August 16, 1863, son of Frank
D. and Margaret (Leigh) Thornton. His father, of an old Virginia
family, a native of Spottsylvania, was educated for the navy. In 1840 he
went to Texas, was identified with that Republic in its early history, and
in the vicinity of Huntsville set up as an extensive cattle raiser and
planter. During the Civil war he served in the Confederate army and
later was a cotton planter and broker at Huntsville. He died in 1882.
As a resident of Huntsville he became a personal friend of its most
famous citizen, Sam Houston, and on the death of that great Texas
statesman early in the Civil war was one of his personal friends who
helped bury him.
It was in the atmosphere of southern Texas and among some of its
best known men that Tom C. Thornton grew to manhood. Until he was
fourteen he attended district school, and then for several years worked
as a laborer driving stock at ninety cents a day. At the age of seventeen
he began the study of law in the offices of Senator A. L. Abercrombie.
The daughter of Judge Abercrombie is now the wife of Judge R. S.
Lovett, formerly chairman of the Southern Pacific Railway and now one
of the most prominent men in the country in the management of great
war industries. Mr. Thornton was admitted to practice in 1885 and
soon achieved a high position in the Hunt County bar. He was also
interested in state politics, and before leaving Texas was personally
associated with such well-known national characters as C. A. Culberson,
at that time attorney general of Texas, but now senior United States
senator from Texas. Another Texan whom he frequently met is the
noted Colonel E. M. House, known as personal adviser to the administra-
tion of President Wilson. Others were John Shepard, fatlier of the
junior United States senator from Texas, and Judge Monta J. Moore and
T. W. Gregory.
Mr. Thornton came to Los Angeles in 1900 and has carried and
still carries a large volume of responsibilities as a lawyer. The Los
Angeles Title Insurance Company, of which he is president, is one of
the oldest institutions of its kind in southern California. He is a
member of the Los Angeles County and State Bar Association, is a
democrat, and is affiliated with Unity Lodge, F. & A. M., and is a
192 LOS ANGELES
Scottish Rite Mason, a Noble of the Mystic Shrine, and an Eastern Star.
March 9, 1896, Mr. Thornton married at Greenville, Hunt County, Texas,
Leona Turner, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Turner.
Harry G. R. Philp, now manager of the great Broadway Depart-
ment Store, comes of a family of merchants and clothing manufacturers,
and has had a progressive career of advancement in Los Angeles since
early manhood, coming step by step to the responsibilities which he now
enjoys.
Mr. Philp was born at Paris, Ontario, Canada, June 12, 1875, son
of Rev. John and Margaret Rebecca Grafton Philp. His father was a
Methodist minister and occupied pulpits in some of the largest and most
important churches of that denomination in Canada, including churches
in such cities as London, Hamilton, Toronto and Montreal. It is
through his mother that Mr. Philp is most closely connected with the
merchandise business. Her family were merchants, manufacturers of
men's clothing, and operated furnishing goods stores in a number of
cities in Ontario.
Harry G. R. Philp graduated from high school in 1893, and then
became a member of the class of 1897 in Victoria College of Toronto
University. Midway in his college course he left his studies and in
November, 1895, arrived in Los Angeles. February 21, 1896, he be-
came cashier and assistant to Arthur Letts, owner of the Broadway
Department Store. Six months later he was made manager of the
notion department, and thereafter he made a close study of all branches
of the business. In June, 1897, he was appointed buyer and annually
made several trips to New York. Later he became merchandise man-
ager, and in 1908 was appointed general manager of the entire store.
Mr. Philp is a member of Southgate Lodge No. 320, A. F. &
A. M., is a Knight Templar, a member of the California Club, Ad-
vertising Club, Chamber of Commerce, is a republican and a member of
the Board of Trustees of the Westlake Methodist Episcopal church.
At St. Catherine's, Ontario, April 27, 1904, he married Charlotte Bo-
gardus. They have three children : Grafton, born in June, 1905, now
a high school boy; Stewart, born in January, 1909, in the grammar
school and Elizabeth Mae, who is also attending grammar school.
Lewellyn Bixby. The history of many large and ambitious ranch
and cattle holding enterprises and also the development of the city of
Long Beach has kept the name of Lewellyn Bixby prominent in the
affairs of southern California for over sixty years. Many of the enter-
prises which the late Lewellyn Bixby, Sr., set in motion have been con-
tinued and brought to successful issue by his son Lewellyn, Jr., one of
the best known citizens of Long Beach.
The elder Bixliy was born at Norridgewock, Maine, in 1825, and
had such advantages as the public schools of his locality could bestow.
His life was spent uneventfully on his father's farm until 1851. In
that year he came to California, making the trip around the Horn and
settling in Amador county. Here he entered a partnership relation
in the butcher business with his cousins, Benjamin and Thomas Flint,
under the name of Flint, Bixby & Company. In 1853 all the cousins
went back home to Maine, traveling via the Isthmus of Panama. When
they came west again it was by the overland route, and a large herd of
sheep which they had gathered ainong the farms of Iowa they drove
over the plains. This time their headquarters were in Monterey, now
■..'••I
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 193
San Benito count.\-, where the sheep were turned loose to graze on
extensive tracts of land purchased by the tirm. It is claimed ihat at
this particular time the firm was the largest land owner in California,
in 1866 they extended their sphere of operations to Los Angeles county
and bought the famous Los Cerritos Rancho, consisting of twenty-five
thousand acres. About that time the firm of Flint, liixby & Company
and Jolham Hixby organized the J. Bixby & Company, which took over
the ownership and control of Los Cerritos Rancho, and for several years
devoted it exclusively to sheep husbandry.
In 1876 or 1878 Lewellyn Bixby, Sr., took up his residence in Los
Angeles and looked after the interests of his firm in southern California
until his death in 1896. He was a very ardent Republican, and was a
trustee and active member of the First Congregational Church oi Los
Angeles.
Lewellyn Bixby and his brother Jotham (elsewhere referred toj
and his cou.sin John, all married sisters, members of the Hathaway fam-
ily of Skowhegan, Maine, Lewellyn Bixby married at Skowhegan for his
first wife, Sarah Hathaway, and after her death her sister Mary became
his second wife. ]Mar>' Bi.xby died in February, 1881. They had three
children: Mrs. P. J. Smith of Claremont, California; Mrs. Theodore
Chamberlin, of Concord, Massachusetts; and Lewellyn, Jr. Both the
daughters were born on the Rancho San Justo in San Benito county,
California.
Lewellyn Bixjjy, Jr., was born in Los Angeles August 21, 1879,
and as a boy attended the grammar and high schools of his native city.
In 18% he entered Pomona Preparatory School and from that Pomona
College at Claremont, from which he graduated Bachelor of Literature
111 190). Besides his literary training he studied cival engineering in
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he was gradu-
ated Bachelor of Science in 1904, and after returning to California he
acquired a general knowledge of the law by eight months of study in
the offices of Hahn & Hahn at Pasadena. Since then Mr. Lewellyn
i')ixby has been a resident of Long Beach, and has been giving careful
and indefatigable attention to the extensive real estate and other business
proprieties left by his father. He is vice president of the National Bank
at Long Beach, president of the Long Beach Savings Bank and Trust
Company, president of the Long Beach Dairy Company, president of
the Soft Water Laundry Company, vice president of the Mutual Build-
ing and Loan Association, vice president of the Bixby Land Company,
vice president 'of the Palos Verdes Company and vice president of the
Alamitos Land Company.
Mr. Bixby is also a trustee of his alma mater, Pomona College, a
member of the University Club of Los Angeles, the Virginia Country
Club of Long Beach, and is a republican voter and a member of the
Congregational Church. At Claremont, California, August 26, 1901,
he married Miss Avis Smith. They have two children. Avis Hathawa\-
and Lewellyn, Jr., the former bom in 1905 and the latter in 1908, and
both students in the public schools of Long Beach.
The Harvard School for Boys is one' of several excellent prepara-
tory boys' schools of southern California, and has some special and
distinctive advantages all its own. One of these is that it is closely
affiliated with the educational program of the Episcopal church, and is
known as the Bishop's School for Boys under the auspices of that
194 LOS ANGELES
church. It is a boarding and day school, and while not primarily a
military school its schedule of student activities is conducted with mili-
tary precision, and a judicious use has been made of military discipline
and instruction.
The Harvard School is now ni its 20th year of existence and work.
It was founded in 1900 by Mr. Grenville C. Emery and Mrs. Ella R.
Emery. Mr. Emery is now headmaster emeritus and the full title of
the school is "The Harvard School Upon the Emery Foundation." The
purpose of founding this school, in the words of Mr. Emery, was to
educate and train the sons of those who are opposed to mixed schools
in the early st^es of their sons' growth and development, who are
tired of the one-sided results of tutoring, and desire a school large
enough to embrace the educative influence of numbers ; who are appre-
ciative of a school surrounded by ample playgrounds and conducted
chiefly by men teacher.-,; a school self-supportmg, independent, Chris-
tian, thoroughly equipped and conducted in all departments on the
highest plane of educational efficiency.
"The Harvard School Upon the Emery Foundation" was incor-
porated in 1911. The standards of instruction and discipline have been
so carefully maintained in past years that the student graduates are now
admitted to all colleges and universities which admit any students upon
certificate without examination, and many others have been admitted
by examination to the great universities of the country and have attained
honor and distinction in scholarship and in other student activities.
The age of admission is from nine to twenty-one, and the utmost
care is used in selecting the candidates for admission, boys of incorri-
gible habits and without previous good associations being rigorously
excluded. The school is both a grammar and high school, each separate,
though the school :s conducted as a unit with as little break as possible
between the eighth and ninth grades. It is a school large enough to
furnish the inspiration of numbers, without the defects and disadvant-
ages that are inherent in most of the public institutions. There is
healthy rivalry among the boys in the different classes, and the num-
bers are not so great that the teacher is unable to give individual atten-
tion. A thorough program of studies both required and elective is
mapped out through the grammar and high school grades, and besides
these the school furnishes opportunities for rfianual training, scientific
military instruction, athletics, social and other organizations, while at
all times emphasis is placed upon the formation of good and regular
habits and the development of religious life. The school has eight
buildings on the campus, including Harvard Hall, the home of the high
school, including also the auditorium, library and recitation rooms.
Junior Hall, home of the grammar school, Arnold Hall, a donnitory,
Rugby Hall, a dormitory, a modern and up-to-date hospital with a
trained nurse in attendance at all times. Gymnasium Hall, Manual Train-
ing Building and the School Chapel. Harvard School is accredited to
West Point Military Academy, and an army officer is detailed by the
War Department for the military discipline and instruction. The school
is designated by the War Department as a unit of the R. O. T. C. Junior
Division.
Harvard School has graduated nineteen classes, numbering nearly
three hundred boys, and how well the school has fulfilled its purpose is
well reflected in the present positions enjoyed by many of these gradu-
ates, some of whom are aready among the prominent men of afifairs in
southern California and in many other cities and states. '
'^J^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 195
Rev. Robert B. Gooden, headmaster of the Harvard School for
Boys at Los Angeles, has been a pastor and identified with the educa-
tional affairs of the Episcopal church in this diocese for the past four-
teen years.
Mr. Gooden was born at Bolton, England, September 18, 18/4,
son of James and Hannah (Burton) Gooden. His early education was
acquired in the Shaw Street Institute at Liverpool, England. Soon
after leaving school in 1888 he came to the United States and for
about ten years he lived near Fresno, California, and had a varied ex-
perience in the agricultural and horticultural activities of that section.
He began his preparation for his present calling when in 1898 he
entered Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut, where he was gradu-
ated A. B. in 1902 and received his Master of Arts degree in 1903. He
also attended the Berkeley Divinity School at Middletown, Connecticut,
graduating with the degree Bachelor of Divinity in 1904. The same
year he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Brewster of Connecticut.
Returning to California, he was assigned his first duties at St.
Paul's Episcopal church, at Ventura. In 1905 he was regularly or-
dained a priest by Bishop Johnson of Los Angeles in the Trinity Church
of Santa Barbara. He then continued his duties at Ventura until 1906,
and the following year had charge of the churches of Escondido and
Fall Brook. In 1907 Rev. Mr. Gooden became rector of St. Luke's
Episcopal church at Long Beach, and resigned that office in 1912 to
become headmaster of the Harvard School for Boys. He is also trustee
of the school and is secretary of the Standing Committee of the Episco-
pal Diocese of Los Angeles and examining chaplain of the Los Angeles
Diocese. He is also counselor of the Eighth District for the General
Board of Religious Education of the Episcopal church. Mr. Gooden
is affiliated with the Elks Lodge and in politics is a republican.
November 7, 1904, at Los Angeles, he married Miss Alice Moore.
They have five children, all attending public school, named Alice,
Frances, Robert, Heber and Muriel.
Gener.vl Johnstone Jones. Of distinguished ancestry, and with
his lineage distinguished by his own character and achievements. General
Johnstone Jones is one of the most widely known citizens of southern
California, where for more than a quarter of a century he has done his
work as a lawyer, leader in public affairs and as a soldier.
His first American ancestor in the paternal line was Cadwallader
Jones, who came from Wales to X'irginia in 1623, when twenty-two
years of age. A later generation was represented by Peter Jones, who
was an Indian trader at Peter's Point, now City Point, Virginia, and in
1675 commanded Fort Henry. In 1689-92 the governor of the Bahamas
was Cadwallader Jones, also an ancestor of General Jones of Los An-
geles. Peter Jones, who founded Petersburg, X'irginia, in 1734, and
Major Cadwallader Jones of Virginia, who in 1777, at the age of twen-
ty-two, was commissioned captain of the Martha Washington Light
Horse under General Washington, were both likewise in the direct line-
age. Of Major Cadwallader Jones it should be stated that he was also
an officer on the staff of General Lafayette, from whom he received one
of those famous Toledo swords which were a gift from the King of
Spain to General Washington, and through the latter were distributed
among the American army officers. This sword was given to Major
Cadwallader Jones about 1780, and has been worn by his lineal de-
scendants of the same name in all the subsequent wars. The first son
196 LOS ANGELES
to bear it was Lieutenant Cadwallader Jones of Halifax county, North
Carolina, who was an officer in the Marines during the battle between
the Leopard and the Chesapeake, one of the most noted naval encounters
of the War of 1812. The next to wear the sword was Colonel Cad-
wallader Jones, whose mother, Rebecca Edwards Jones, was a grand-
daughter of General Allen Jones. General Allen Jones was the friend
and patron of the illustrious John Paul Jones, who took the family name
in recognition of that fact. General Allen Jones was also a distinguished
leader in the North Carolina colony both before and during the Revolu-
tion. Through this branch of the Jones family General Jones of Los
Angeles is related with the Polks of North Carolina and Tennessee, the
Davie, Epps, Daniels, Eaton and Cobb families.
The mother of General Johnstone Jones was Annie Isabelle Iredell.
Her father, James Iredell, served as attorney general and afterward
as governor of North Carolina, and sat in the United States Senate with
Webster, Clay and Calhoun as contemporaries. Governor Iredell was
descended from Judge James Iredell, who was born at F>elfast, Ireland,
in 1751, son of Francis and Margaret (McCuUoch) Iredell, and grand-
son of Rev. Francis Iredell. Judge Iredell at the age of seventeen was
appointed collector of the port at Edenton, North Carolina, and quickly
rose to distinction in the colony, studied law, and in 1790 was appointed
an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by Presi-
dent Washington. He died at the age of forty-six.
The wife of Governor James Iredell was Frances Treadwell. Her
father. Dr. Benjamin Treadwell, was a .skilled physician of Long Island.
He was a descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullen, whose roman-
tic history is familiar to every American school child. In the same an-
cestry was Bishop Samuel Seabury, a great-great-grandson of John Al-
den. Bishop Seabury was the first Protestant Episcopal bishop in the
United States.
These historic figures constitute the ancestral background to the
career of General Johnstone Jones. General Jones was born at Hills-
boro. North Carolina, September 26, 1848. His Christian name was in
honor of his ancestor. Governor Gabriel Johnstone, one of the first co-
lonial governors of North Carolina. He was liberally educated, attend-
ing Hillsboro Military Academy and the South Carolina Military Acad-
emy at Columbia. In November. 1864, at the age of fifteen, he enlisted in
White's Battalion, South Carolina Cadets in Brigadier General Stephen
Elliott's Brigade of Hardee's Army. He was with that command until
the close of the war. Like many another high-spirited Southern youth
he felt impelled to take a practical hand in the work of rehabilitating
the devastated country at the end of the Civil war, and for a time he
was clerk in a store at Rock Hill. South Carolina. He also studied law
under William K. Ruftin, son of Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin at Hills-
boro. In January, 1868. General Jones was appointed deputy clerk of
the Supreme Court of North Carolina. The clerk of that court was
William H. Bagley. father of Ensign Bagley, whose death early in the
Spanish-American war is well remembered. William H. Bagley was
also father of Mrs. Josephus Daniels, wife of the present secretary of
the navy. A few months later, at the age of twenty, General Jones was
admitted to the bar. and entered upon his active career as a lawyer at
Baltimore. In 1872 he returned south and for two years was editor of
the Daily Observer at Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1874 he was elected
secretary of the State Senate, and in 1875 served as secretary of the
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 197
Constitutional Convention. He was thus identified with and has a
lively memory of those personalities and events which reflect the recon-
struction era of his home state. During 1876-78 General Jones edited
the Daily News at Raleigh. January 8, 1877, Governor Zebulon B.
Vance appointed him adjutant general of North Carolina with the rank
of brigadier general, and in this position his services were retained for
three consecutive terms, by reappointment from Governor Thomas J.
Jarvis in 1881 and by Governor Alfred M. Scales in 1885. General
Jones was adjutant general in North Carolina until January, 1889.
For some years in the meantime he had his home at Asheville, and
in 1884 was elected to represent Buncombe county in the State Legisla-
ture. While there he was chosen chairman of the committee on military-
affairs. In January, 1879, while at the convention of Militia Officers
in New York City, General Jones was one of the committee of three that
drafted the Constitution and By-Laws of the National Guard Associa-
tion of the United States. Later he served as vice president of this
association, succeeding General Beauregard in that office.
It was on account of the ill health of his wife that General Jones
gave up his law practice and resigned his active associations with the
militarj' and civic aff'airs of North Carolina to come to California in
August. 1889. He had married in June, 1873, at Charlotte, North Caro-
lina, &l''ss Elizabeth Waters Miller. Her father was Thomas C. Miller,
a prominent North Carolina attorney. Among her ancestors was the
noted General James ]\loore, who served with the rank of brigadier
general in the Revolutionary war. On coming to California General
Jones opened an office at San Diego in partnership with James E.
Wadham, who has since served as mayor of San Diego. In September,
1890, General Jones was nominated for district attorney and in the
following November was elected by a majority of eighteen, being the
only democrat chosen, in the county that year. After a term of two
years he was again nominated, and his sen'ice and his increasing popu-
larity drew many votes to him outside his own party, but owing to the
presence of a populist candidate and a three-cornered fight the republican
nominee was victor.
In November, 1893, General Jones moved to Los Angeles and now
for a quarter of a century has practiced law in that city. During 1896
he was nominated by the democrats of the city of Los Angeles for
state senator from the Thirty-seventh Senatorial District and defeated
by his republican opponent. On January 1, 1899, General Jones was
appointed assistant district attorney by James C. Rives, and served
four years in that position.
Within a month after the declaration of war against Spain General
Jones had raised a cavalry regiment of twelve troops from Los Angeles,
Pasadena, Los Nietos Valley, Norwalk, W^hittier, Santa Ana and San
Bernardino, and tendered their services to the president. Much to his
disappointment the quota from California had been filled and there was
no subsequent call for his regiment to the service. But he has done
his part in two wars, and though not a soldier is not an inactive figure
in the present great struggle in which America is engaged, and it can
truthftilly be said that whether in war or in peace he has been an
American citizen whose ideals could be trusted and whose influence is
valuable to the safeguarding of the Republic.
198 LOS ANGELES
The Westlake School for Girls was founded in 1904, and now
in its sixteenth year, has won a standing and appreciation as one of
the best institutions of its kind in southern California. It is a school
that appeals to cultivated minds by the dignity of its claims and the
wholesome scope of the advantages it olifers.
The founding of this school for girls at Los Angeles was the result
of a long projected plan by two Stanford graduates. Miss De Laguna
and Miss Vance, who up to the summer of 1904 were members of the
faculty of the University of Southern California. The Westlake School
for Girls was therefore opened with a strong college preparatory bias,
and in the first year of its work asked for accrediting by the State
L'uiversity. This request was practically granted at that time, and
since that year the school has been on the accredited list of schools
for entrance to the State University and is now accredited to Stanford
University and the great eastern women's colleges.
The school was first opened in what was then a retired section
opposite Westlake Park on Alvarado street. The two original build-
ings were soon increased to six. The increase in buildings due to the
growth of the school presented certain inconveniences and increased the
difficulty of direct management, so that for some years the founders
planned and worked for a new home. This new home was realized
in the fine old English buildings on the crest of the Westmoreland Hills.
To this site the school was moved in the Spring of 1917, thirteenth
year of Tts existence. The location is one of double attractiveness.
It is within the city and yet is sufficiently secluded to give unusual
freedom of outdoor life. Nature seems to have created the snot for
the very purpose to which it has been put. A wonderful panorama
stretches on all sides, affording an unbroken prospect as far as the
Sierra Madre Mountains. It has been the purpose of the founders of
the school to surround the students during their most impressionable
years with those influences which would develop a sense of true har-
mony and Cjuicken their perception of things beautiful, and this pur-
pose has been abundantly realized in the present site and also in the
comfort and charm of the buildings which adorn it. The new campus
has a large swimming pool in the open and the girls are qualifying
as swimmers. Bowling on the green is also a favorite sport. The
bracing air of the Westmoreland Hills is conducive to health and dis-
play of energy, and outght to produce a race of vigorous women.
The grounds comprise a tract something over two acres in extent
and the school is the center of an educational community. Its location
on the edge of a deep ravine gives the school the advantages of a posi-
tion of remoteness that aids much in emphasizing the scholastic nature
of the spot.
•The school has continued to uphold its ideals as a college prepara-
tory school, and offers full courses in all the subjects required for en-
trance to the colleges. There is also a strong art department, music
school and school of expression. A lower school in a separate building,
thoroughly equipped, prepares students for the upper school. Students
now are passing on to the colleges, never having attended any other
school than the Westlake School for Girls, from the kindergarten to the
senior class of the college preparatory.
The Westlake School for Girls is a purely private enterprise and
the associate principals and joint owners are Miss Vance and Miss De
Laguna. Miss Frederica De Laguna graduated A. B. from Stanford
University and has her Master of Arts degree from Columbia Uni-
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 199
versity. After leaving the university Miss De Laguna was professor of
English Literature at the University of Southern California at Los
Angeles until she joined Miss Vance in 1904 in establishing the present
school.
Miss Jessica S. Vance is a graduate of Stanford University with
the degrees A. B. and A. M. Prior to taking up her present work she
taught at Mills College at Oakland, was assistant in English at Stanford
University, and later Professor of Philology and Literature at the Uni-
versity of Southern California.
The Westlake School for Girls, based upon the solid foundation
of usefulness and culture, bringing sweetness and light into the lives
of the young women of California, has taken its place in the educa-
tional system of the V'V'estern Coast.
George Smedlev Yarn.\ll is not "a mere business man." Probably
from some of his Quaker ancestors he got the idea that to enter busi-
ness was not altogether an opportunity of- making money, but an oppor-
tunity to exemplify one's best talents and service. Mr. Yarnall is the
dean of the representatives of the Provident Life and Trust Com-
pany of Philadelphia in California. This is one of the oldest life
insurance companies in the country, having been founded bj' a group
of Friends and financiers in Philadelphia more than half a century
ago. Mr. Yarnall is also president and manager of the Federal Mort-
gage and Bond Company, and now gives most of his time to the affairs
of that company. His record of handling its affairs is one of the out-
standing facts of his integrity.
Mr. Yarnall was born in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, near
Philadelphia, November 24, 1856, a son of Isaac and Elizabeth (Smed-
ley) Yarnall, both now deceased. His parents were born in the same
locality of Pennsylvania. Both the Yarnall and Smedley families came
to America as colonists with William Penn. Isaac Yarnall and wife
had a family of five sons and three daughters, all living except one
son, who died at the age of fifteen, and one daughter who died in in-
fancy. George S. is the only one in California, his brothers and sisters
living near Philadelphia.
He attended a private school in Delaware county and also a noted
Friends school, the Westtown Boarding School in Chester county. He
remained on his father's farm to the age of twenty-one, and his educa-
tion was completed at .the age of sixteen. For five or six years he
was in the coal, feed and lumber business at Glenmiils and Morton
Stations on the West Chester and Philadelphia Railroad. Then for
eight years he was in the clerical department of the Pennsylvania Rail-
road at the Broad Street Station in Philadelphia. On account of ill
health he took a six months' leave of absence and came out to California,
remaining at Pasadena and resigning his position with the Pennsylvania
Company. He lived at Pasadena three years and then returned east.
For three years he was associated with his brother William S. in the
optical business in Philadelphia, and then joined the field force of the
Provident Life and Trust Company. For eight years he was in the
home office at Philadelphia, and in 1902 returned to California and has
ever since been representative and special agent of that company, and
it is his intention to remain with the organization the rest of his active
career. He also does a general brokerage business in insurance of all
kinds.
Mr. Yarnall's courage and resourcefulness as a business man were
200 LOS ANGELES
put to the test when in April, 1916, he took over the tangled affairs
of the Investment Building Company of Los Angeles, which a few
months previously had been reorganized as the Federal Mortgage and
Bond Company. At that time the assets of the company were largely
on the debit side, and the records of the previous management were
such that only a man conscious of his own rectitude could have been
induced to accept the responsibilities which Mr. Yarnall shows as presi-
dent and manager. During the past three years he has worked steadily
to put the organization on a paying basis, and on every hand has come
evidence of confidence in his administration and the general integrity
of the resources of the business itself. The company has a large amount
of improved and unimproved property, and have built and sold a large
number of artistic bungalows and are developing some of the best resi-
dence sections in and around the city.
For many years Mr. Yarnall has been a prominent factor in the
prohibition party. In his native state he was chairman of the Prohir
bition County Committee of Delaware county, Pennsylvania, for twelve
years, and was the prohibition candidate for Congress in the campaign
prior to the election of the present congressman Charles H. Randall.
He received a larger vote than ever previously given to any other pro-
hibitionist for such office in the United States. He has been similarly
active in behalf of prohibition in California. He was instrumental and
wrote the resolutions for the dry fight and carried it before the con-
vention in 1914. He was executive secretary of the California Dry
Campaign Committee in that year. Afterward he was president of
the Pasadena Dry Federation, handling the campaign in Pasadena,
where such a tremendous dry vote was cast. He is a member of the
New Century Club, a literary club of Pasadena, member of the Los
Angeles Realty Board, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Automo-
bile Club of Southern California, and in different ways has made his
influence count for good roads. He is also president of the Friendly
Circle of Pasadena, and his religious associations are those of his an-
cestors, the Society of Friends.
November 6, 1879, in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, Mr. Yar-
nall married Miss Ella Mendenhall. Her parents, Henry and Deborah
(Passmore) Mendenhall, lived on a farm adjoining that of the Yar-
nalls in Delaware county and she was reared and educated in the same
locality as her husband. Mrs. Yarnell is a member of the W. C. T. U.
of Pasadena. Mr. and Mrs. Yarnall first came to California in 1888,
spending three years at that time, and returned in 1902. They have
always had their home in Pasadena, their residence being at 656 North
Los Robles avenue, Pasadena.
Rev. Patrick O'Donoghue. One of the most recently established
parishes of the Catholic church in Los Angeles is the Church of Our
Lady of Loretto, of. which Father O'Donoghue is the second and present
pastor.
This parish was established by the late Bishop Conaty in June, 1915.
In absence of a regular church edifice the first mass was said at the
Temple Street Car Barn at the corner of Edgeware and Temple streets.
The present church occupies ground at the corner of Union and Court
streets. The cornerstone of the edifice was laid June 17, 1916, and the
church was dedicated in November, 1917, by Bishop Conaty. A recton'
was also built in the spring of 1917, and a parish hall and parish school
complete the group of buildings and the services of the parish. The
^^S^^y^C^
I'ROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 201
growth of ihe parish has been slow but steady, beginning with twenty
families, and there are now three hundred and fifty families constituting
the parish. Father George Donahoe was pastor from the establishment
of the church until March, 1918, when he was transferred to the Churcn
of Sacred Heart.
Rev. Patrick O'Donoghue, the present pastor, was born in County
Kerry, Ireland, August 4, 1885, a son of Daniel and Margaret (Kennelly)
O'Donoghue. His early education was acquired in the National schools
of Ireland until fourteen, and then being destined for the priesthood
he studied at St. Michael's College at Listowel in County Kerry, graduat-
ing in 1902, and took his theological work in St. Patrick's College at
Carlow. He was ordained priest June 14, 1908, by Bi.shop Foley.
Practically all his active career of ten years has been spent in the
Los Angeles Diocese. For several years he was assistant pastor of St.
Patrick's church at Los Angeles, and in 1915 was appointed pastor of
St. Joseph's church at Bakersfield, California, St. Mary's church .it Taft,
and St. Brendan's church at Maricopa. He was burdened with the
responsibilities of these three missions until February, 1918, when he
was inducted into his present duties.
Albert B. Conrad, a former member of the Los Angeles City Coun-
cil and long identified with the official life of this city and county, is a
native son of California and has drunk deep of the romance and ex-
perience of the west and far north. He is the son of a forty-niner, and
much of his own life has been spent on the frontiers of civilization.
Mr. Conrad was born at Folsom in Sacramento county September
20, 1856, a son of Charles Claren and Elizabeth E. (Ager) Conrad.
Her father was a Baptist minister, came to California at the age of
eighty-four, but afterward returned to St. Lawrence county. New York,
where he died at the age of eighty-eight. This Baptist minister's mother
lived to the remarkable age of a hundred one. Charles C. Conrad and
wife came across the plains in 1849 with an old ox team, building floats
to get across the rivers, and experienced all the ups and downs of fron-
tiering. Their first location was in the celebrated gold diggings of
Hangtown, near Colomo. Charles C. Conrad died at Folsom in Sac-
ramento county about 1860, when his son Albert was three or four
years old. After his death the family traveled for two years in the
east, and while there the mother died and as buried- at Redwood City
in St. Lawrence county. New York. In the meantime she had married
Benjamin C. Quigley at Folsom. Mr. Qiiigley was in the grocery
business at Vallejo, in Solano county, and in 1876 moved to San Fran-
cisco, where he was street inspector under L. M. Manzer. He after-
ward returned to Vallejo and married for his second wife Miss Nellie
Hodge. He lived in San Francisco until after the fire and then came
to Los Angeles, where he died about three months later. His widow
is still living at San Francisco. Mr. Quigley was also a California
forty-niner, coming from Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. Albert B.
Conrad had one brother, older than himself, Charles C. He was lib-
erally educated, his people spending about twenty thousand dollars in
giving him the advantages of the best institutions of the east. He spent
his life as a teacher and died in Arizona.
Albert B. Conrad acquired his education in the common schools of
California and the best part of his education came from travel and
experience. In 1879 he left San Francisco and went to Tombstone,
Arizona, where he engaged in mining, smelting and assaying, working
202 LOS ANGELES
in the Toughnut and Empire Mines. He also did some mining in
Sonora, Mexico. In 1884 he came to Los x-\ngeles, and after several
employments was appointed to a position in the county tax collector's
office. During the smallpox epidemic of 1887-8 he was a volunteer
nurse, taking charge of many patients until the Catholic Sisters came
to his aid. He did sacrificing work for about nine weeks. He was
then a deputy in a county office and later was an attache in the State
Senate during two sessions as bookkeeper to the sergeant-at-arms and
one session as clerk of the Judiciar}' Committee, and was secretary of
the Republican County Central Committee undpr Charles W. Silent, Fred
W. Wood and Bradner W. Lee.
The most thrilling chapter of Mr. Conrad's life experience was
the two and one-half years he spent in the far north in the famous
gold regions around the Yukon in Alaska. In 1897 he started alone
with four dogs as companions, with twenty-eight hundred pounds of
provisions, bedding and other supplies and two sleds. On the way he
was joined by a man, a stranger, with the understanding that he was
to reach Dawson, Mr. Conrad to provide him with money and pro-
visions until he got work in Dawson. They pulled over the snow
along the northern trails, and went over the lakes by the aid of sails
on their sleds, letting the dogs follow behind. They put buckskin
shoes on the dogs. Finally they arrived at a sheep camp in the Chil-
koot Pass. He was the only man v.'ho fought his way to the sheep
camp and escaped the slide in which a party of sixty-four men were
buried in the snow, only four escaping alive, he having left before
the rest. Four days later Mr. Conrad and his companion started on
and arrived at Marsh Lake,- where they whipsawed lumber from the
standing trees, built a boat, put the boat on the sleds and loaded all
their goods and dogs, set sail and started across the ice on tlie lakes.
When half way down they struck open water and then transferred
the sleds to the boat and partly rowing and partly sailing attained the
head of the Yukon River. There they unloaded and recalked the boat
and the next day started down the river. Many boats were ahead and
behind, some of the parties having been trying for a whole year to
get through. At the White Horse Rapids Mr. Conrad lost his boat,
and spent a week walking up and down stream picking up everything
that would float. His partner got hold of some San Francisco papers
and taking them went on to Dawson in a canoe, selling the papers for
a dollar and a half apiece. Mr. Conrad, left behind, joined a couple
of boys from Iowa to assist him to Dawson, and they took turns with
the boat day and night. When he reached Dawson eight hundred
boats had preceded him but many more were behind and a large part
of them never reached Dawson at all. As soon as he landed at Daw-
son he made a run for Bonanza Creek, located a valuable claim there,
but through the connivance of a Canadian official was prevented from
realizing anything from it. He next started by boat for Fort Cudahy
on the Forty Mile River, went up to Franklin Gulch, located several
claims, built a log cabin with a dirt roof and named the locality Con-
rad Gulch. Modern map makers still recognize that name. He spent
about a year there prospecting and sinking shafts but found nothing of
value, and becoming disgusted started back to Dawson. He then went
up Bonanza Creek to Gold Hill, and was employed shaking a rocker
at a dollar and a half an hour. He remained there until the district
was cleared up and then on returning to Dawson was taken ill and soon
took a boat to St. Michaels in order to get medical atttention. He
I'ROM THE AIOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 203
reached St. Michaels about the time the first pan of dust was sent
in from Nome. He started for Nome, but everything had been located
ahead of him. He therefore remained on board the steamer, which
brought him to San Francisco. He reached San Francisco the latter
part of 1900, after having been away two and one-half years.
Mr. Conrad was soon appointed clerk of the Judiciary Committee
of the Senate at Sacramento and at the close of the session returned tp
Los Angeles, where he was employed as extra deputy in the City
assessor's office until appointed chief deputy of that department, a place
he filled until the election of H. H. Rose as mayor, and was then ap-
pointed by Mayor Rose as city tax and license collector. He was in
that position until the office and that of the city assessor were con-
solidated in 1916. Mr. Conrad then entered city politics as candidate
for the City Council and was elected and took his seat the first Mon-
day in July, 1917, serving faithfully the interests of all his constitueftts
and the city at large until July, 1919.
Mr. Conrad is a member of Ramona Parlor of the Native Sons of
the Golden West, is a republican and attends the Methodist Episcopal
church. He is a member of the Automobile Club of Southern Cali-
fornia and the City Club, and resides at 835 Garland Avenue. He
married Mrs. Anna E. Clarke, of Los Angeles.
Mervin J. MoNNETTE. While during his residence in Los Angeles
Mervin J. Monnette has had the dignified associations of a prominent
banker and financier, the greater part of his life has been spent as a
practical man of affairs in close touch with the working realties. He
has been a farmer, live stock dealer, rancher, gold miner, as well as
banker.
He was born at Marion, Ohio, August 24, 1847, son of Abraham
and Catherine (Braucher) Monnette, the former a native of Virginia
and the latter of Pennsylvania. The Monnettes are an old French
Huguenot family, the ancestry being traced back in direct line for six
or seven centuries. They were early Colonial Americans, and members
of the family participated in Colonial wars and also the war of the
Revolution and many subsequent wars.
Mervin Jeremiah Monnette had only such educational advantages
as were supplied by the country schools near his boyhood home. He
remained at home farming and stock raising to the age of twenty-one,
and in 1868 went to the Chicago Stock Yards as a dealer. Later he
returned to Oliio and located at Bucyrus, where he was president of the
Second National Bank from 1888 to 1898. His interests were attracted
to the gold fields of the west, and during 1897-98 he was a stock broker
at Cripple Creek, Colorado. From 1898 to 1905 Mr. Monnette was an
extensive ranch owner and cattle feeder in Nebraska. When the famous
gold field mines of Nevada were opened up he was one of the men early
on the ground, and shares the credit for the discovery and development
of the famous Mohawk mine, of which he was a part owner.
Mr. Monnette has had his home at Los Angeles since 1907. He
became president of the American National Bank, and later vice presi-
dent and director of the Citizens National Bank and the Citizens Trust
& Savings Bank. He was also a member of the Los Angeles Mining
Stock Exchange. His present active business connections are as vice
president and director of the Citizens National Bank, Citizens Trust &
Savings Bank, and secretary-treasurer and director of the Bankers Oil
Company.
204 LOS ANGELES
Mr. Monnette is a republican, a member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, is affiliated with the Elks, the California Club, is a member of the
Sons of the American Revolution and the Society of Colonial Wars. Janu-
ary 5, 1869, he married Olive Adelaide Hull, now deceased. Their only
living child is Orra E. Monnette, president of the Citizens Trust and
Savings Bank of Los Angeles. Mr. Monnette was married to Ethel
M. Reed, in Los Angeles, October 21, 1915.
Orra Eugene Monnette. The interests and associations that lend
quiet distinction to Orra Eugene Monnette are those of a successful
lawyer, a banker, member of many scholarly, patriotic and social organi-
zations, and, to his intimate friends, a cultured personality to which no
large human undertaking makes an uncertain appeal.
Mr. Monnette, who has been a resident of Los Angeles since 1907
and is president of the Citizens Trust & Savings Bank, was born near
Bucyrus, Ohio, April 12, 1873, son of Mervin Jeremiah and Olive Ade-
laide (Hull) Monnette. Of his father, also well known in Los Angeles,
more is said on the preceding page of this publication. Mr. Monnette
graduated from the Bucyrus High School in 1890, attended a business col-
lege there, and took his college work in the Ohio Wesleyan University at
Delaware, where he was graduated A. B. in 1895. He also took a
special course in law in the same institution. He was admitted to the
Ohio bar in 1896 and in the meantime had received some training in
business as an employe of the Second National Bank at Bucyrus. He
formed a law partnership with Judge Thomas Beer and Smith W.
Bennett, under the name Beer, Bennett & Monnette, at Bucyrus in
1897. After Mr. Bennett retired in 1899 the partnership continued as
Beer & Monnette until October, 1903. At that date Mr. Monnette
removed to Toledo, and as a partner with Hon. Charles A. Seiders
enjoyed an extensive clientage until 1906, when he opened an office
of his own. On coming to Los Angeles in 1907 Mr. Monnette con-
tinued his individual law practice, but since 1912, when he was elected
president of the Citizens Trust & Savings Bank, has given almost his
undivided attention to the affairs of this splendid institution, one of the
best known and strongest banks of southern California.
Mr. Monnette is also a director of the Citizens National Bank of
Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Title and Trust Company, and the Mort-
gage Guarantee Company. By appointment of the mayor he served as
a member of the Municipal Annexation Commission of Los Angeles
and is president of the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Public
Library.
Many people unfamiliar with his career as a lawyer and banker
know his name in connection with considerable literary work, especially
through articles, poems and various prose works contributed to maga-
zines. He has long been a student of genealogy and history, and pub-
lished "California Chronology" in 1915. His Magnum Opus, however,
is "Monnet Family Genealogy," published in 1911, upon which he ex-
pended ten years of labor and ten thousand dollars. The work has
thirteen hundred pages and one hundred seventy-one illustrations.
Mr. Monnette is a member of the Society of Mayflower Descend-
ants, of the Huguenot Society of America, Sons of the American Revo-
lution, Society of Colonial Wars, the Order of Washington, Society of
the War of 1812. He is a member of the honorary scholarship fra-
ternity Phi Beta Kappa and of the social fraternity Phi Kappa Psi, of
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 205
which he was elected national president in June. 1911. He is a thirty-
second degree Scottish Rite J\Jason and .^hriner. In politics he is a
republican, and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. Local
societies of which he is a member are the California Club, Jonathan
Club, Union League Club, Los .Xngeles Athletic Club, Los Angeles
Country Club, Knickerl)ocker Club, "The Scribes," "'The Uplifters," Los
Angeles Rotary Club, the Automobile Club of Southern California, and
the Los Angeles County Bar Association. November 6, 1895, Mr.
Monnette married Carrie Lucile Janeway, of Columbus, Ohio. On De-
cember 15, 1917, he married Helen Marie KuU, of Los Angeles.
Rev. George Donahue, pastor of the Church of the Sacred Heart,
has been a consecrated worker in the diocese of Los Angeles ever since
he was ordained to the priesthood. «
The Church of the Sacred Heart originally formed a portion of the
Old Plaza parish. Its first mission was opened under the pastorate of
Father Peter, afterward IHshop of Brownsville, Texas. In 1889 the
Church of the Sacred Heart was formed into a separate parish. Its
first pastor was I'^ather Harnett, appointed by Bishop Francis r^lora.
In 1900. Rev. ilichael McAuliffe succeeded him. and served until his
death, Noveml)er 23, 1907. The next incumbent was Rev. P. Gerald
Gay, who in February, 1918, was succeeded by Rev. George Donahoe.
Father Donahoe was born at Loretto, Pennsylvania, September 4,
1876, a son of Thomas and L}dia Donahoe. He was educated in public
and parochial schools in his native state, attended the Holy Ghosl
College in Pittsburgh and St. Vincent's Seminary at Pittsburgh. He was
ordained a [priest .August 13, 1901, at Los Angeles by Bisho]) Mont-
gomery.
His first api)ointmenl was as assistant pastor of the Church of the
Sacred Heart at Hollister for two years. Returning to Los Angeles.
lie became secretary to the late Bishop Conaty for two years, ami then
took charge of the Church of our Lady of Loretto, at the corner of
Court and Cpion streets. Father Donahoe organized this parish in
1905 and continued in charge until i\[arch. 1918. when he was transferred
to his present field.
William R. Bukke, who died following an operation for appen-
dicitis at the Mayo Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, July 19, 1911,
was a Los Angeles pioneer, one of the earliest investors in city real
estate, and in gaining an individual fortune made many contributions
to the welfare and development of his community.
To his friends he was always known as Major Burke, a title which
he shunned, but as a son of the Southland and as a mark of real dis-
tinction the title clung to him. He was born at Helena. Arkansas, and
was about sixty-five years of age when he died. Prior to 1885, when
he came to Los Angeles, he was editor of a paper in his home city. He
married Miss Greenfield, daughter of a wealthy cotton broker of New
Orleans. She died January 25, 1910, the mother of two children, Carle-
ton F. Burke, and Miss Louise Burke.
William R. Burke had considerable wealth when he landed in
Los Angeles. With great faith in the future of southern California,
he invested his money in real estate and allied himself with everj- move-
ment to make Los Angeles and the surrounding territory better known
and appreciated. This faith was well rewarded, his investments pros-
pered, and at the time of his death his propertv was estimated to he
206 LOS ANGELES
worth more than a milHon. He bought beautiful Berkeley Square when
it was a barley field and developed the district into one of the most
exclusive residential sections in southern California. His large home
has stood as one of the distinctive types of old southern architecture
for many years. He also owned valuable frontage on Broadway be-
tween Eighth and Ninth streets and between Ninth and Tenth streets,
and other property on East First street near San Pedro street.
For years he was a recognized leader in civic life, was a stanch
democrat, and a delegate to the national democratic convention in 1896,
where he seconded the nomination of Bryan for president. He was a
Catholic, a member of the Knights of Columbus and of the California
and Los Angeles Country Clubs. His hobby in athletics was polo, and
it is said he never missed a polo game in or about Los Angeles.
Carleton F. Burke, son of the pioneer Los Angeles real estate man,
William R. Burke, w'hose career is sketched on preceding page, has for a
number of years handled the valuable Burke interests in southern Califor-
nia, and is widely known in real estate and civic life and also as a soldier of
the recent war, in which he spent two years in the service and attained
the rank of major.
Major Burke was born at Helena, Arkansas, December lO, 1882,
and was two years old when his parents came to Los Angeles. He at-
tended St. Vincent's College to the age of fifteen, then Thatcher School
for Boys at Nordhofif, Ventura county, for two years, and spent three
years in the University of California. After completing his education
he was associated with his father in real estate operations and still
continues the real estate and insurance business.
Mr. Burke since early youth has been an enthusiastic polo player,
and perhaps his greatest enthusiasm has been in good horses. This
taste strangely enough became the basis of his qualifications for patriotic
service during the recent war. He enlisted in June, 1917, in the Re-
mount Service of the United States Army, his duties being in the pur-
chasing and training of horses for army use. He was commissioned a
captain at enlistment and in October, 1918, was promoted to major.
Major Burke spent fifteen months in France, and received his hon-
oratile discharge in June, 1919. ,
Major Burke is unmarried. He is a member of the Knights of
Columbus, California Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Los Angeles
Country Club, and in politics is a democrat.
Jacob W. Earl. Thirty years ago Jacob W. Earl had a small car-
riage shop in Los Angeles. He was one of the pioneer carriage makers
of the city. He gradually developed his works, adapting himself to
progress and change, and a large patronage and an entire community
have come to recognize the value and reliability of his service. That
position meant much to him and was a decided asset when the automobile
came into popularity and threatened to displace horse-drawn vehicles.
Mr. Earl early made a change in his facilities to meet the new demands,
and for a number of years has' been a maker of automobile bodies and
other parts exclusive of mechanism. Today the Earl Automobile Works
is a big institution. It is best known not only in Los Angeles but in
other parts of the country to people of means and of exclusive tastes.
Some of the products of this company are sent all over the United States,
and it is the largest industry of its kind west of Chicago.
Mr. Earl comes from a state that is now a center of automobile per-
fection. He was born at Lansing, JMichigan, February 1, 1866, a son
JiW^^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 207
of John and Carl (Teman) Earl. Up to the age of sixteen he hved
at home and attended pubHc schools. Then going to Cadillac, Michigan,
he learned the carriage making trade with W. A. Miller. In l]i86 Mr.
Earl came to Los Angeles, and for the next three years was employed
by the J. N. Tabor Carriage Works.
In 1889 he established a shop of his own at 107-109 East S>th street.
His floor space was only 18x38 feet. The business grew and prospered
and in 1900 he moved to 1320-22-24 South Main street, and about that
time added to his general business the manufacture of automobile bodies,
tops, trimming and painting. Mr. Earl stands prominent in the auto-
mobile industry as the inventor and pioneer maker of the automatic wind
shield which is universally used today.
In 1917 another change was affected in the business when it moved
to its present quarters at the corner of Pico and Los Angeles streets.
The works now occupy 60,000 square feet. In 1889 only one assistant
worked with Mr. Earl, while today he supervises the activities of a
force of ninety men. Very recently he invented the "tonneau wind
shield," which is attached to the top and is considered the most practical
device of its kind on the market. But Mr. Earl's primary reputation
is built upon the construction of automobile bodies and special tops.
Except for the motive mechanism he turns out complete automobiles and
some of these are of the jnost distinctive models for individual customers.
He has built a number of such machines ranging in price as high as ten
thousand dollars.
Mr. Earl is a republican and a member of the Methodist Episcopal
church. June 20, 1891, at Los Angeles, he married Miss Abbie L.
Taft, who passed away October 29, 1914. They were the parents of
five children: Carl E., aged twenty-six: Harley J., aged twenty-four;
Arthur T., aged twenty-two ; Jessie L., aged thirteen : and William O.,
who is nine years old. The younger children are in public schools. Carl
E. is a graduate of high school and the University of Southern California
and is now purchasing agent for the Earl Automobile Works. Harley
attended Leland Stanford University after leaving high school and is
now a designer with the automobile works. Arthur is a high school
graduate and is now a salesman for his father's business. Mr. Earl
was married to Nellie May Black January 17, . 1917, and the one child
of this miion is Henry John, born September 10, 1918.
Joseph F. Grass. For twenty-five years the late Joseph Ferdinand
Grass was an important factor in the business affairs of Hollywood and
the worth of his efforts in the developing of real estate here cannot be
overestimated. He built the first residence ever erected on that avenue
of beautiful homes, Hollywood Boulevard, and it was Mr. Grass who
laid out the curbing. He was devoted in every way to the interests of
this section, investing himself to the extent of his fortune and being
the means of bringing large amounts of capital here.
Joseph F. Grass was born in New Orleans in 1863. His French
ancestors wrote the name "de Grasse" but the family as it became thor-
oughly Americanized adopted the shorter appellation. Mr. Grass was
a grandson of Count de Grasse, who came early to New Orleans. A
quarter of a century has elapsed since Mr. Grass came to California
and settled in Hollywood, where at tthat time only twenty-five families
had preceded his own. He started ranching on a small tract of six-
teen acres, on which he grew oranges and lemons. He kept watchful
as to business opportunity and when H. J. Whitley came and bought
land Mr. Grass opened his first real estate tract, later opening up five
208 LOS ANGELES
others, including the Lilhan tract and the Los Angeles View tract,
giving his entire attention to this business. He was associated as a
partner with Philo Beverage for a time but later operated individually.
He erected some thirty residences and business blocks from Cherokee
street to Las Palmas avenue.
Mr. Grass married Eulalia Pinta, who was of Italian and French
parentage, and is survived by his widow and the following children :
Eulalia Bertha, Mrs. C. L. Hogan ; Julia Blanch, Mrs. Edward N. Klar-
quist; Eulalia Marie, Mrs. Clinton W. Evans, of Pomona; Lillian
Marie, Mrs. Hart Nesbit, of Pomona ; Joseph F. Grass, Jr., of Merced ;
and three children of his wife by a former marriage : Dr. Joseph O.
Chiapella, a surgeon of Chico, California ; Edward Emile, of Holly-
wood, and Stephen Eugene, of Los Angeles who were reared by Mr.
Grass as his own sons. His children were born in the south. Addi-
tionally he left twelve grandchildren. Nominally a republican, Mr. Grass
often voted independently. He belonged to the Masonic fraternity and
the Order of Foresters. His death occurred December 12, 1918, and he
was laid to rest according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, to
which he belonged.
Right Rev. John J. C-\ntwell. In 1918 the Diocese of Monterey
and Los Angeles welcomed as its new bishop John J. Cantwell, D. D..
who has been a consecrated worker in California nearly twenty years, and
was called to his present duties from his former position as Vicar Gen-
ral to the Archbishop of San Francisco.
Right Rev. John J. Cantwell was born in County Tipperary. Ire-
land, in 1874. A number of his family have been distinguished in the
annals of the church. Several of his uncles were priests, and Ijishoj)
Cantwell himself has two brothers in the clergy: Rev. James P. Cant-
well, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and Rev. William
J. Cantwell, rector of St. Anselm's church, San Anselmo, California,
while a still younger brother, Arthur, is a student at St. Bernard's
.Seminary at Rochester, New York.
Bishop Cantwell received his academic education in the college ut
the Jesuit Fathers at Limerick and pursued his theological studies at
St. Patrick's College, Thurles. He was ordained a priest in 1899 and at
once came to California, being assigned to the Archdiocese of San Fran-
cisco. His first mission was at Berkeley, and for five years he was assist-
ant to the rector of St. Joseph's church. His learning and elo(|uence
quickly won him distinction and gave him great opportunities for service
in the University City, where he interested himself especially in the
Catholic students at the University of California, and through his efforts
lirought about the organization of the Newman Club in that city.
In 1904 the late Archbishop Riordan called Father Cantwell to the
post of secretary, an ofiiice demanding a fine combination of learning,
courtesy and administrative ability. It was his fulfillment of the obli-
gations and responsibilities of his new post that brouglit him quickly the
regard and confidence of a growing number of the clergy, laity and non-
Catholics. Upon the appointment of Archbishop Hanna to the see
of San Francisco Father Cantwell in 1915 became Vicar General of
the Archdiocese. This position he held until he came to southern Cali-
fornia to assume the duties of Bishop of the Diocese of Monterey and
Los Angeles.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 209
The Sawyer School of Secretaries. In one of the most modern
cities in the world, where every form of business and social service
reaches its highest perfection, it is a matter of interest to note that there
is only one school for the preparation of secretaries to serve the manifold
purposes comprised in the broadening significance of that term. It is a
business school of the higher grade, where upon the foundation of routine
technique is superimposed a training in independent thinking, initiative
and the intelligent action which modern business demands.
Probably the primary purpose in the minds of the founders of the
school was to afford opportunities for training the man and woman
who already possessed a formal high school or college education but
without special fitness for a place commensurate with their latent abili-
ties in business life. The directors of the school have therefore been
pioneers, and have given the institution a faculty of university train-
ing and study, with an admirable balance between theory and practice.
It is noteworthy that the course in commercial law is handled by one
of the attorneys associated with the Title, Insurance & Trust Com-
pany of Los Angeles; the bookkeeping is under an expert accountant;
and the business correspondence is given by a post-graduate of Co-
lumbia University, prepared especially for high school and college teach-
ing of English.
The three principal courses of study offered by the Sawyer School
are the secretarial course, business training and intensive training. Any
school is judged by its results, and the Sawyer School has been in ex-
istence long enough to demonstrate the fact that the possessors of its
diplomas possess a distinction resting upon real and broad qualifica-
tions for the post of responsibility to which they aspire in the' business
world.
The directors of the Sawyer School are Miss Camille M. GifTen
and Miss Frances Jackling. Miss Gift'en is a daughter of G. M. Giffen,
a pioneer of Los Angeles and long associated with the G. M. Giffen Com-
pany, seal estate. She received her B. L. degree from the University of
California with the class of 1914, and in addition to her duties in the
Sawyer School is an instructor in history at the Manual Arts School
of Los Angeles.
The other director, Miss Frances Jackling, was reared and was
a resident of the city of Seattle until nine years ago. She received
her Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degree from the Uni-
versity of California in 1914, and was then a teacher in Miss Head's
School and later instructor of physical education in the Hollywood
High School. It was recognition of the need for a higher type of busi-
ness woman that induced these two far-sighted young women to enter
their special field of education, and the results of the Sawyer School
show that they chose wisely and have accomplished a notable service
in their pioneer undertaking.
Adeline and Julia Riddle, M. D., who came to Los Angeles in
1917, were for nearly a quarter of a century active and successful practi-
tioners of medicine in the state of Wisconsin, where they did pioneer
work for their sex in the profession of medicine and achieved many
noteworthy distinctions.
The sisters were born at Derby, Indiana, daughters of Robert Henry
and Elizabeth (Gayley) Riddle. The family during the early seventies
moved out to the Indian frontier in Kansas and lived in that state nine
years. While there the girls had their first schooling in a school con-
21U LOS ANGELES
ducted in 3. typical prairie dugout. From Kansas the family moved
to Waitsburg, Washington, where the young ladies attended grammar
and high schools, graduating in 1884. Both subsequently tauglit school
at Dayton, Washington. Mary Adeline left her work in the conven-
tional vocation of teaching in 1890, and Julia in 1891, both entering the
Women's Medical College of Chicago, now the Women's Department
of Northwestern University. M. Adeline graduated with honors and
the M. D. degree, the following year continuing her studies in the Hah-
nemann Medical College at Chicago, from which homeopathic institu-
tion she also received the M. D. degree in 1894. In that year her sister
Julia graduated from the Women's Medical College, and both located
at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. For three years they were engaged in separate
practice and then became associated as partners.
For several years they had to overcome strong prejudice against
women practitioners, and they were among the first to overcome those
prejudices and achieve recognition and remunerative work. They re-
mained at Oshkosh until 1917. At Oshkosh they were editors of the
Journal of Preventive Medicine, published under the auspices of the
Wisconsin Medical Women's Association and devoted to instruction
in proper food, hygiene and moral education. Through the medium of
this magazine Drs. Riddle & Riddle became widely known and were
called upon as lecturers. They lectured before various state organiza-
tions and other societies on the subject of hygiene and moral educa-
tion. During 1912 they gave all their time .md talents to the cause
of suffrage. They made the first automobile tour of Wisconsin, their
home state, in the interest of suffrage hi company with Minona S.
Jones. In that year suft'rage was first submitted to the voters of Wis-
consin.
Drs. i^iddle and Riddle were members of the American Medical
Association, Wisconsin State Medical Association, Wisconsin Medical
Women's Association, but now of the California State and County
Medical Societies, the State Local and the Race Betterment League of
Wisconsin, and Dr. Adeline was chairman of the Health Department in
the State Federation of Women's Clubs. It is believed they are the only
sisters practicing medicine together in the United States. Dr. Julia was
the only woman physician appointed as a legally authorized medical
examiner for the Travelers Life Insurance Company, and also the only
woman to be appointed as surgeon for the Wisconsin Central Railroad
Company.
While at Oshkosh the sisters offered their services as physicians and
surgeons in the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army.
On receiving orders to go before the Medical Examiners of Wisconsin
they passed the mental examination but objected to complete the physi-
cal examination before male physicians and asked that a woman be ap-
pointed for that work. Subsequently going to Washington, an interview
with General Gorgas, Surgeon General of the Army, brought out the
fact that women physicians were not being commissioned under the
Medical Reserve Corps upon the same terms as men, but were placed on
a salary without official recognition, the military honors going to male
physicians only. Refusing to accept this unjust discrimination, the sis-
ters decided to come to California to resume their private practice.
They had several times visited this state and intended to locate here
when they retired. Coming as they did in 1917, while many male
physicians and surgeons were engaged in war work, they filled a patent
need and found immediate recognition and service. They have their
(|7 a. Mi^^^^^--^^^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 211
offices in the Consolidated Realty Building and their home at 4615 Kings-
well avenue, in Hollywood. The sisters are members of the Methodist
Episcopal church. Dr. Adeline has an adopted daughter, the child of
a former patient. Her name is Lenorc Adeline Riddle and she is now
seven years of age.
Ernest A. Montgomery, a permanent resident of Los Angeles since
1904, though his associations with the city date back to the early '90s,
is one of the most conspicuous figures in mining circles in the far west.
W hile for a number of years he has been considered a capitalist, doing
business on a large scale and controlling great resources and furnishing
employment to hundreds of men, there was a time when he was in the
ranks shoulder to shoulder with the prospectors, toiling to the limit of
physical endurance, and sharing all the dangers and hardships that have
been so long associated with the life of the western mine operator.
He was born in London, Canada, November 24, 1863, son of Alex-
ander and Jane (Chapman) Montgomery. He is of Scotch ancestry.
His paternal grand-uncle was General Richard Montgomery, leader of
the ill fated campaign against Ouebec at the beginning of the Revolu-
tionary war. Mr. Alontgoniery received his first schooling at London,
but later his parents moved to Stuart, Iowa, where he attended school
and busied himself on the home farm.
In 1884 he started for the mining regions of the northwest. He
was in Idaho and Washington, where he had meager success ; then going
to Nevada, where he devoted a few years' time in developing and operat-
ing gold mines. There are few of the wealthy associates of Mr. !\Iont-
gomery at Los Angeles who understand better the old axiom about
eating one's bread by the sweat of one's brow. Mr. Montgomery has
always credited a considerable share of his early success to his congenial
relations with the Indians. He showed fairness and consideration for
the red men, in contrast with the usual attitude of whites toward Indians,
and he became recognized as a decent, honorable man in every Indian
community. The Indians helped him instead of thwarting him in his
enterprises, and he has a lasting debt of gratitude for the helpfulness
extended to him by his old Indian friends.
Nearly twenty years elapsed from the time he set out from the Iowa
farm until he had achieved recognition as a successful mine operator.
In 1901 he helped organize and develop what is known as the Mont-
gomery district in Nevada. One of his early properties there was the
Johnnie Mine, which netted him a small fortune. After this came his
operations in Inyo county, California, where he developed the World
Beater and O Be Joyful properties. Fifteen years ago Nevada held
the center of the stage among new mining districts. Mr. Montgomery
was at Tonopah in 1903, and for a time shared with others in an effort
to get a railroad into the Tonopah district. His reports, based upon
intimate investigation and knowledge of the country, prevailed with the
directors and builders in locating the route of the Los Angeles, Daggett
iC Tonopah, a road that was subsequently turned over to and completed
by the Tonopah Tide-water interests.
Mr. Montgomery resumed his active mining operations in 1904
around Tonopah, and in September of that year located the Shoshone
Mine in the Bullfrog district of Nevada. The property was rapidly
developed, and at the end of sixteen months had become so conspicuous
as to attract the attention of Charles M. Schwab and his financial asso-
ciates. In the meantime Mr. Montgomery had acquired a generous for-
212 LOS ANGELES
tune but was not yet ready to retire. In 1905 he obtained control of
the Skidoo Mine on the edge of Death Valley in California. After
spending half a million dollars in development work and installation of
machinery he brought out ores which in a few years returned him
dividends more than the amount of the original investment. Mr. Mont-
gomery was one of the original property owners of the Goldfield district
in Nevada who in the fall of 1903 organized the camp and named it
Goldfield.
In recent years Mr. Montgomery has extended his interests into
the mining districts of old Mexico, and was also identified with the
mining camp at National, Nevada. He also became extensively inter-
ested in the oil fields of Tampico, Mexico, and was formerly a director
of the Mexican Premier Oil Company. He is now vice president of
the Topila Petroleum Company and president of the Panuco Excelsior
Oil Company, both properties being of great value. Very recently he
has taken an interest in the mining of silver on the west coast of Mexico.
He has served as vice-president and director of the American Mining
Congress, and to him is due the credit for the splendidly successful con-
vention of that congress held at Los Angeles in 1910. He is also a
member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and of many
technical, business and social organizations, including the Masonic Order,
the Mystic Shrine, the Jonathan Club, the Rocky Mountain Club, of which
he is a charter member, and the Chemical Club of New York and the
American Club of Mexico City. July 23, 1912, at New York City, Mr.
Montgomery married Miss Antoinette Schwarz, daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Frederick Schwarz.
John D. Fredericks as District Attorney of Los Angeles county
handled the famous prosecution and trial of the McNamara brothers
for the dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times Building in 1911. Prob-
ably no criminal trial in America has been more extensively written
up and is more familiar to public knowledge both in this country and
abroad. All of the important moves in securing evidence au^ainst the
McNamara brothers were directed by District Attorney Fredericks, in-
cluding much of the brilliant part played by the detective W. J. Burns.
The part which reflects the greatest credit upon Mr. Fredericks' judg-
ment and skill in the case was his influence in securing a direct con-
fession of guilt from the McNamaras, thus avoiding a prolonged trial in
court, which under the conditions would have been regarded as an out
and out contest between capitalism and organized labor.
Mr. Fredericks, who has to his record many other achievements in
his profession, has been a member of the Los Angeles bar for a quar-
ter of a century. He was born at Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, Septem-
ber 10, 1869, son of Rev. James T. and Mary (Patterson) Fredericks.
In the Fredericks family every male member for over two hundred years
has been either a physician, minister or lawyer.
John D. Frederick attended the public schools of his native town,
the Trinity Hall Military Academy at Washington, Pennsylvania, and
graduated from Washington and Jefiferson College in 1890, with his
A. B. degree. The same year he came to California, and while teach-
ing in the Whittier State School for three years read law and was ad-
mitted to practice m 1893. From 1899 to 1903 he served as Deputy
District Attorney of Los Angeles county and it was his success in hand-
ling a number of criminal trials that brought him the nomination and
election as District Attorney of the county in 1902. He was re-elected
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 213
in 1906 and in 1910, filling the office continuously from 1903 to 1915.
Besides the McNamara case which brought him international fame as
a prosecuting lawyer, Mr. Fredericks handled a case of much interest
and importance in 1906 when he represented Los Angeles county and
other California counties contesting before the Federal courts the case
against the owners of the patent on oiled roads. Mr. Fredericks con-
tended that the process was not patentable, and after a hard fight se-
cured a verdict which made the process of oiling roads public property.
Mr. Fredericks served as Adjutant of the Seventh Regiment, Cali-
fornia Volunteers, in the Spanish-American war. He is a republican,
a Presbyterian, a Knight Templar Mason and a Shriner, a member of
the California and Los Angeles Athletic Country Clubi and also the
Automobile Club of Southern California. In 1896 he married Agnes
M. Blakeley, of Los Angeles. They have four children : Doris, John D.,
Jr., Deborah and James B.
Byron Calvin Hanna is a prominent young lawyer of the Los An-
geles bar and has spent all his life since early childhood in this state.
He was born at Kinsas City, Missouri, January 2, 1887, and in
1891 when he was four years of age his parents Phil K. and Florence E.
(Townsend) Hanna moved to California. He was educated in public
schools and received his degree in law from the University of Southern
California. Preparatory to his professional work Mr. Hanna had sev-
eral experiences and employments, at first with the Wells Fargo &
Company Express, then as an accountant, later as a stenographer, and
finally as a lawyer. He was admitted to the bar by the Appellate Court
at Los Angeles January 2, 1908. He served as city attorney of the City
of Venice eight years, as chief deputy district attorney of Los Angeles
county two and a half years, having been appointed to that position
February 1, 1911. He became a member of the law firm Thorpe &
Hanna December 1, 1910, and for the past five years has been a mem-
ber of the firm Fredericks & Hanna with offices in the Merchants Na-
tional Bank Building.
Mr. Hanna is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks, the Los Angeles County Bar Association,
the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Delta Chi Fraternity, and in politics
is a republican. His home is at 933 South Kingsley Drive in Holly-
wood. He married at Riverside July 16, 1917, Daisy May Boycott, a
daughter of Walter J. Boycott. Mr. Hanna has one daughter, Ruth
Hanna.
Alexander Mitchell. In volume of receipts and business trans-
actions the largest Land Office of the United States is that of the Los
Angeles District. The receiver of this office, and the man entrusted with
the responsibilities of handling over a quarter of a million dollars per
annum, is Mr. Alexander Mitchell, a veteran railway man and formerly
active in Los Angeles real estate afliairs, and one of the courageous and
unflinching advocates of democracy in principle and in party. Mr.
Mitchell was appointed receiver of the Los Angeles Land Office in 1914
to succeed O. R. W. Robinson, and on the basis of his qualifications and
record was reappointed June 19, 1918.
Mr. Mitchell is a native of Scotland. He was born and educated
in Aberdeen, and in 1877, at the age of eighteen, came to the United
States with his uncle, Alexander Mitchell. For several years he lived
at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his first position was as a clerk in the
214 LOS ANGELES
Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Bank. From 1879 to 1883 he
handled the lands of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Com-
pany in northwestern Iowa. In 1884 he was made traveling passenger
agent of that company, and continued in its service steadily for sixteen
years. For ten years he had complete charge of all its freight and
passenger business in the states of Utah, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
In 1900 the Railway Company transferred him from Salt Lake City to
Chicago, but he remained there only about a year.
The immediate cause that brought him to Los Angeles was a trip
to benefit his youngest son's health. He obtained a ninety day leave
of absence from the railway company, but on his own responsibility con-
tinued that leave indefinitely and has been a resident of Los Angeles
since 1901. For fifteen years he was one of the successful operators in
the local real estate field, and his long and varied experience in handling
public, railroad and other lands and properties was a most substantial
recommendation for the office he now holds.
Mr. Mitchell has always been a democrat in principle and has kept
his political record absolutely clear. While with the railway company
at Salt Lake City he was a member in 1896 of the first Democratic Com-
mittee of Utah, and took part in the Bryan campaign of that year. In
1908 he was president of the Bryan Club of Glendale, and has been a
leader in every democratic local and state campaign in California for
sixteen years. He never sought the honors or responsibilities of public
office until he was chosen to his present position. He received the solid
endorsement of the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee
for nomination as Land Office receiver. It is a matter of special interest
and note that at the time of his first appointment to this office four years
ago a Los Angeles paper in noting his appointment quoted his views
on government ownership of railways. Mr. Mitchell at that time under-
stood many of the diffiiculties and obstacles that interfered with the har-
monious regulation of railway rates and interests by means of the Inter-
state and State Railway Commission, and predicted ultimate government
ownership, and recent events have at least confirmed his proposition so
far as the breakdown of railway management under public regulatory
bodies is concerned.
Mr. Mitchell is a prominent member of the Order of Elks. \Miile
a resident of Utah he became the first exalted ruler of Salt Lake City
Lodge No. 85, and is therefore a life member of the Grand Lodge, and
has served as president of the Local Lodge, the Fraternal Brotherhood.
He is president of the "Community Sing" of Glendale. Mr. jNIitchell is
married and has a family of four children : Lorraine Mitchell, principal
of the Columbus Avenue School ; George A. Mitchell, connected with
the county surveyor's office ; and Barbara I. and A. Gilbert IMitchell, both
graduates from the Glendale high school. George A. Mitchell enlisted
in the navy at the outbreak of the war and rose to the rank of ensign.
Arthur L. Veitch is a Los Angeles lawyer whose work as a spe-
cial prosecutor in several famous criminal trials has attracted wide
attention. For several years he has been busied with a large general
practice, and his time is fully taken up with his professional duties.
Mr. Veitch has been a resident of Southern California since 1901.
He was bom at Mayville, Michigan, July 5, 1884, a son of Arthur and
Martha Cordelia fChoate) Veitch. His parents still live in Los An-
geles, to which city they removed from Michigan in 1901. Arthur
Veitch, Sr., was a druggist during his active life. He was a native of
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 215
Oxford County, Ontario, Canada, of old Scotch ancestry, and his wife
was born in Clarence, New York, and is a connection of the Choate and
Todd families of New England. The name Choate has been conspicuous
in the legal profession for many generations.
Arthur L. Veitch, the only child of his parents, attended the public
schools of Mayville, Michigan, graduated from the Los Angeles High
School in 1902 and took his law course in the University of Southern
CaUfornia, graduating LL. B. in 1907 and LL. M. in 1909. Admitted
to the bar July 1, 1907, his professional services were soon required
in many prominent cases. His work as an attorney attracted the ai Men-
tion of the District Attorney and in May, 1909, he was appointed a
deputy and was one of the most vigilant members of the District At-
torneys office for several years. Wliile in the District Attorneys office
he was employed in assisting to prosecute the McNamara dynamiting
cases at Los Angeles and the subsequent "Dynamite Conspiracy" cases
at Indianapolis. On January 1, 1915, after leaving the district attor-
ney's office he began private practice, and on January 1, 1918, became
a member of the law firm Fredericks & Hanna. Mr. Veitch was also
special prosecutor employed by the State of Washington in a prominent
case involving the I. W. W. when they stormed and made a demon-
stration of force against the city of Everett, Washington, in the fall
of 1916, seventy-four prisoners being brought to trial.
Mr. Veitch is a republican, is affiliated with the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks and a member of the Los Angeles County
Bar Association. July 5, 1909, on his twenty-fifth birthday, he married
Miss Gertrude E. M'esplou, a native daughter of Los Angeles. She
is a graduate of the Los Angeles High School. They h<ive one son,
Frederick Arthur, born July 31, 1910. Mr. Veitch and family reside at
1506 West 46th street.
Major A. J. Pickrell, whose home and business offices are in Los
Angeles, has been a prominent figure in western mining life and aft'airs
for many years, and is one of the leading factors in the great copper
districts of the southwest.
Major Pickrell has lived his life in many states of the Union. He
was born near Wapakoneta in Auglaize county, Ohio, August 23, 1862,
a son of Andrew Jackson and Elizabeth (Vincent) Pickrell. Before
he was ready to attend school his parents moved to the vicinity of
Cherokee in Colbert county, Alabama. The father had a plantation and
used a log building as a school for the benefit of his own children and
those of other families in the neighborhood, hiring a teacher. When
Major Pickrell was fourteen his parents moved to luka, Tishomingo
county, Mississippi, and there he had his first instruction in public
schools, and also some military training. When he was sixteen he
went with his parents to Ennis, in Ellis county, Texas, where his father
had a general merchandise business. There he again attended public
school, and for one year also studied law.
The call of destiny came and was answered when he left his
Texas home on horseback for Leadville, Colorado, at the time of the
great gold and silver rush to that point. He started out with four-
teen, but only five of them finished the trip. For three years he was in
the mining district of Leadville, and then went to Aspen, Colorado,
where he did some silver mining. About that time came a discouraging
drop in the price of silver, and Major Pickrell moved his camp, hav-
ing heard of some of his friends who were doing well in the gold and
216 LOS ANGELES
copper district near Prescott, Arizona. Prescott has ever since been
the scene of his chief operations as a miner and mine operator. From
1902 to 1907 he was general superintendent o fthe Phelps-Dodge prop-
erties of northern Arizona, one of the greatest mining corporations in
the southwest. At the same time he looked after his own mining in-
terests at Jerome, where he is interested in the United Verde Extension
Company of Jerome. This is one of the largest high grade copper
ore bodies of any mining company in the United States.
Major Pickrell is president of the Tillie-Starbuck Gold & Silver
Mining Company near Prescott, Arizona, which he organized, contain-
ing several thousand feet of development work and opening up at a
depth of some seven hundred to eight hundred feet of very valuable
ore. An unusual feature of this enterprise is that it was developed with-
out pay for official development and without commission on stock sales.
Major Pickrell is a director of the Commercial Trust & Savings
Bank of Prescott, a director of the Home Savings at Los Angeles, and
a director of the Van Nuys National Bank of Van Nuys, California,
near which place his home is located in the San Fernando Valley. He
is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the City Club and a
democrat in politics. He married at Aspen, Colorado, Minnie L. Hale.
N. T. Powell is treasurer of the city of Los Angeles. The official
title alone hardly does credit to his long and varied service in behalf
of the municipality, his splendid executive abilities and the range of
service performed by him both in and out of office. Mr. Powell has
been a resident of Los Angeles for a quarter of a century and comes
of a distinguished Southern family. Ned Trucxstone Powell was bom
at Atlanta, Georgia, January 18, 1866, a son of Dr. Fielding Travis
Powell, a prominent physician and surgeon who at one time was presi-
dent of the Eclectic Medical Association of Georgia. He contributed
much to medical literature and also was a writer of fiction and other
forms of literary effort. He was a native of Tullahoma, Tennessee. He
died at Atlanta more than twenty years ago. Dr. Powell married
Martha Ann Jintsy Powell, a distant cousin, in 1849. She was born
at Decatur, George, at the old Powell Plantation, August, 1830, and died
in May, 1917, at the age of eighty-seven. The Powell Plantation is
famous in history as the headquarters for General Sherman and Gen-
eral McPherson during the Atlanta campaign. Three days after they
left the plantation General McPherson was killed.
N. T. Powell was one of a family of two sons and one daughter.
The youngest living member of the family, N. T. Powell, attended the
public schools of Atlanta and later in a four years' course acquired a
thorough academic education in a number of special branches. For a
number of years he had a banking experience under the tutorship of
the firm Maddox, Rucker & Company of Atlanta. From the south
Mr. Powell removed to New York to perfect his knowledge of banking
in Wall street, and in 1895 came to Los Angeles.
May 11, 1896, Mr. Powell married Miss Ada Gaty. They were
married at the death bed of her father Edward W. Gaty, who was
twice mayor of Santa Barbara, California, in which city the marriage
was solemnized. Mrs. Powell was born in St. Louis and her grand-
father Samuel Gaty owned and operated the first steamboat on the
Mississippi River.
Soon after coming to Los Angeles, Mr. Powell was appointed finan-
cial expert by the county grand jury to examine the accounts of the
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 217
County of Los Angeles. In the spring of 1898 he was appointed by the
Board of Education to take the school census of the city. The follow-
ing year he was appointed Clerk of the City Courts of Los Angeles,
filling that office for four years. He was then made chief deputy of the
City Treasury, and has been connected with the treasury department
ever since. He has been city treasurer since January, 1916. In con-
nection with his official duties he has represented Los Angeles in im-
portant financial negotiations in New York, Sacramento and elsewhere.
An unsual and unprecedented honor paid Mr. Powell, and one fitly
bestowed in recognition of his official duties as city treasurer, is rep-
resented by a framed resolution found in Mr. Powell's office, expressive
of the sense of the City Council of the indebtedness of the community
to his official administration. This formal resolution was passed May
3, 1917, and is part of the Council records of the city.
I The City Treasury of Los Angeles has to account for and handle
over forty million dollars annually, and the city treasurer is also ex-
officio trustee and custodian of the municipal paving bond funds. Ob-
viously it is an office of great importance, requiring great executive
ability, and it is the good fortune of Los Angeles that a man of Mr.
Powell's qualifications presides over an institution that is so vital to
the civic Hfe of the community.
In politics, Mr. Powell being from the South was reared in a demo-
cratic atmosphere but his chief concern in recent years has been to sup-
port the best man for the place. Over his desk hang pictures of Wash-
ington, Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson flanked by a large copy of the
Declaration of Independence, his idea being the man not the party. He
was chairman of the Municipal Offices Committee during all of the
Liberty Loan drives, and disposed of over a million and a half dollars
worth of bonds, in the five campaigns. He is a member of the Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce, City Club, Woodmen of the World
and has served on a number of public committees. Mrs. Powell, who
took a prominent part in Red Cross and Civic work, passed away sud-
denly, from heart failure on October 28, 1919, at her home, 1721 South
Burlington avenue.
Everett H. Seaver, who came to Los Angeles from Kansas City,
where he was well known in grain and Board of Trade circles, has been
an active factor in business affairs of southern California since 1911.
After William Wrigley, Jr., paid three million dollars for the Catalina
Island resort in the winter of 1918-19, under the reorganization of the
business Mr. Seaver became general manager of the Santa Catalina Island
Company and therefore has the practical supervision of nearly all the
business details aitecting the administration of this famous resort.
Mr. Seaver was born at Salina, Kansas, September 2, 1886, but in
infancy was taken by his parents to Kansas City, Missouri, where he
lived until coming to California. His father, James E. Seaver, who was
born at Batavia, New York, in 1853, was educated in the Michigan State
Normal School to the age of nineteen, and then spent a few years pros-
pecting for gold in California, in Canada and Mexico, but finally settled
down to more permanent interests as a miller at Salina, Kansas. In
1887 he removed to Kansas City, Missouri, becoming a member of the
Board of Trade and was active in the grain business there until 1916,
when he retired. His death occurred March 12, 1918. He married
while living at Salina, Kansas, Bella R. Carr.
Everett H. Seaver graduated from the Kansas City High School in
218 LOS ANGELES
1904, and then for two years was in the grain business with his father.
With this experience he quaHfied as an independent member of the Board
of Trade and was in the grain business for himself until 1911. On com-
ing to Los Angeles Mr. Seaver became secretary and treasurer of the
California Drug and Chemical Company, and held that post until 1915.
In July, 1917, he organized the Fulton Shipbuilding Company, with
Charles E. Fulton as president, and Mr. Seaver as secretary and treas-
urer. In January, 1918, he became president and general manager of
this business, and carried those responsibilities in addition to his other
connections with the Catalina Island Company.
Mr. Seaver is a member of the California Club and Los Angeles
Country Club. At Kansas City, February 3, 1909, he married Gertrude
Sharp. They have three children: Charles H., born in 1911 ; Catherine
J., born in 1913, and James E., born in 1918
Arthur R. Peck, Los Angeles inventor and manufacturer, has
done much pioneer work in the field of invention, and has also supplied
much of the business energy and resources responsible for the estab-
lishment and prosperous conduct of the Anaheim Sugar Company, one
of the largest beet sugar companies in California.
Mr. Peck was bom at Aurora, Ontario, Canada, ]March 28, 1862,
son of Rufus T. and Susan (Wells) Peck. When he was a child his
parents removed to Cortland, New York, where he was educated in the
public schools and Normal School. His first invention was made when
about twenty-one years of age. He perfected a practical type of the
cash register, had it patented in 1887, and for several years manufac-
tured it on a successful scale. Mr. Peck sold this business in 1895,
and removed to Syracuse, New York, where in 1892 he organized the
Barnes Cycle Company. At that time the bicycle was enjoying the
height of its popularity, and his company manufactured one of the
best wheels on the market, known as the Barnes White Flyer. Mr.
Peck continued as manager of the company until 1900, at which time
the company was sold to the American Bicycle Company.
As a bicycle mantifacturer it was only natural that he became a
pioneer in the promotion of the automobile. Associated with Alexander
T. Brown, inVentor of the Smith-Premier typewriter, and three other
men, Mr. Peck furnished the original capital to build the first three
Franklin automobiles constructed, and which resulted in the formation
of the great Franklin Automobile Company.
What brought Mr. Peck to Los Angeles was his association with
C. M. Warner of the Warner Sugar Refining Company of New York.
These capitalists organized the Anaheim Sugar Company in the year
1910, in which he and Mr. Warner are the principal stockholders. Mr.
Peck is president, Richard Melrose vice president, L. H. Multer secre-
tary and treasurer, and the other directors are C. M. Warner, E. T.
Stimson, Frank J. Carlisle and Donald Barker.
The Anaheim Sugar Company was incorporated with a capital of
$750,000, and the plant at Anaheim was put in operation in July, 1911,
with a capacity of 600 tons of beets per day. The plant has been en-
larged until its present daily capacity is 1.2CiO tons. The company con-
tracts to handle the product of 12,000 acres of beets in Los Angeles
and Orange Counties, and in 1917 the aggregate of business was valued
at $2,500,000. In the plant and business 275 men find direct and regular
employment, while it furnishes employment and revenue indirectly to
over a thousand more. The Anaheim sugar plant has direct transporta-
tion facilities over the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railways. .
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 219
Mr.- Peck is also a director of the National Bank of Syracuse, and
of the Mack-Miller Candle Company of Syracuse, which he and an-
other associate organized. His fame as an inventor also rests upon
Peck's Pressure Filter, a device extensively used in mining and sugar
plants. Mr. Peck is now having this filter manufactured.
He is a member of the California Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club,
Sierra Madre Club and the Los Angeles Country Club of Los Angeles,
and the Centurv Club, Onondaga Golf and Country Club and Citizens
Club of Syracuse. Politically Mr. Peck is a republican. At Syracuse,
in November, 1892, he married Miss Carrie Aldrich. Their one son,
Aldrich R., born in 1896, was a student in the second year at Yale Uni-
versity when he enlisted in the Naval Reserves.
Milton G. Coqper. The wholesale district of Los Angeles has one
of its most conspicuous institutions in the Cooper, Coates & Casey Com-
pany. The president of this company and business organized it some
years ago largely upon his extensive experience and demonstrated suc-
cess as a traveling salesman.
Mr. Cooper has been connected with the dry goods trade prac-
tically all his life, having begun it as a clerk in a large firm in Kansas
City, Missouri.
' He was born at Springdale, Ohio, October 9, 1873, son of Thomas
and Sarah Cooper. At the age of fifteen he left high school to do any
work that might be assigned him as a boy clerk in the wholesale dry
goods house of Burnham, Hanna & Munger, at Kansas City. His
diligence and intelligence found favor in the eyes of his superiors, and
in 1894, when he was twenty-one years of age, he received the coveted
honor of a place on the firm's pay roll as a traveling salesman. In 1895
Mr. Cooper came out to Los Angeles to represent his house in the
Pacific Coast territory, and during the next eleven years he not only
built up an immense volume of trade for his house, but became familiar
with commercial conditions and built up an extensive acquaintance all
up and down the coast.
Then in 1906 he organized the Cooper, Coates & Casey Company,
of which he has since been president. This company does a wholesale
business in dry goods, notions, floor covering, men's and women's fur-
nishing goods. Their first plant was at 528 South Los Angeles street,
where they had 24,000 square feet of floor space. Today the different
buildings furnish 250,000 square feet. In 1912 they erected a five-story
and basement building on the southeast corner of Seventh and Los
Angeles streets, and in 1918 put up a five-story building adjoining the
first building, part of this space being used for factory purposes, manu-
facturing women's, children's and boys' garments. A subway con-
nects the two buildings. The carload shipments arrive at their River
Station warehouse, and the company owns a large garage and operates
forty automobile cars and trucks. The company does both a domestic
and export business.
Mr. Cooper is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a member of
the United Commercial Travelers, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Los
Angeles Country Club, and is not only one of the principal men of
affairs of Los Angeles, but a citizen of the deepest public spirit.
At Plattsburg, Missouri, June 26, 1895, he married Miss Hattie
M. Philips. They have one son, Stuart, who was educated in the gram-
mar and high schools, the University of Southern California and Phila-
delphia Textile School at Philadelphia, and is now making a practical
use of his liberal education with the Cooper, Coates & Casey Company.
220 LOS ANGELES
George F. Getty, a resident of Los Angeles since 1906,' came to
this city with a well established reputation as an attorney, practiced law
for over twenty years in Michigan and Minnesota, but for the past
fifteen years his chief interests have been in oil development and pro-
duction. He is president of the Minnehoma Oil Company, one of the
largest producing companies in the Oklahoma fields.
Possessing initiative and ability of a high order, and a long and
persistent worker, Mr. Getty has never been in the class of the "average
man." He was born at Grantsville, Maryland, October 17, 1858, son
of John and Martha A. (Wiley) Getty. Soon after his birth his parents
moved to eastern Ohio, where he received his early education. At the
age of eighteen he entered the Smithville Academy in Ohio, and from
that continued his studies in the Ohio Northern University at Ada, where
he was graduated A. B. July 10, 1879. He left his impress on the student
activities of that old and well known institution, and is one of its most
loyal alumni and a trustee of the university. He was especially interested
while in college in literary work and debating, and some years ago he
founded the Getty Debating Club, contributing a fund from which two
prizes are given annually. Mr. Getty was valedictorian of his class in
the Ohio Northern. He was a student of law in the University of
Michigan, and was admitted to the bar at Ann Arbor in 1882. He then
located at Caro in Tuscola county, Michigan, and practiced law for two
years, in which time he was Circuit Court commissioner of that county.
In 1S84 he removed to Minneapolis, and was a member of the bar of
that city for twenty-two years. A large practice came to him and he
became a specialist in insurance law, a branch of work which gained him
a clientage and practice over many states of the Union. While in Min-
nesota he also served as secretary of the State Prohibition Party and
editor of its party journal. The Review.
Since removing to Los Angeles in 1906 Mr. Getty has become in-
terested in several oil corporations, but chief among them is the Minne-
homa Oil Company, which he organized in 1903, and, as the name indi-
cates, the original personnel of the company were Minnesota men, while
the field of operations is Oklahoma. Judge William A. Kerr is secre-
tary of the company. This corporation owns a hundred wells, produc-
ing 2,000 barrels of oil a day, and' has about a hundred men on its pay
roll. These properties are located in some of the richest oil territory
of Oklahoma, around Tulsa, Gushing, Cleveland and Bartlesville.
As a business man Mr. Getty has caught the modern spirit of busi-
ness and is as progressive as he is successful. In the spring of 1917 he
organized the Loyal Petroleum Company, of which he is president and
controlling stockholder. The rest of the stock is held by the leading em-
ployes of the other corporations with which Mr. Getty is connected, and
the primary purpose in organizing the company was to enable employes
to profit from the business.
Mr. Getty is a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, of
the Gamut Club and Municipal League, the Brentwood Country Club, the
Automobile Club of Southern California, the Alid-Continent r)il Produc-
ers -Association, and is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner. In religious
matters he is a Christian Scientist. In 1916 Mr. Getty shared honors
with Governor Frank B. Willis of Ohio in delivering the principal ad-
dresses at the commencement exercises of the Ohio Northern University
at Ada. Governor Willis was a former instructor in the Ohio Northern.
On March 31, 1916, the Ohio Northern conferred upon Mr. Gett.\- the
degree Doctor of Commercial Science. Mr. Getty has traveled widely
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 221
and was in Europe just before the World war broke out in 1914, leaving
France the day before the opening of hostilities and returning to the
United States on the Lusitania. At Marion, Ohio, October 30, 1879, Mr.
Getty married Miss Sarah Risher. They have one son, Jean Paul, born
December 15, 1892. From the public schools he entered the University
of Southern California, was also in the University of California and Ox-
ford University, at Oxford, England, and spent some time at the Sor-
bonne in Paris. He is now interested with his father in the management
of oil properties in Oklahoma.
William Jefferson Hunsaker has practiced law in Southern Cali-
fornia for more than forty years. Few members of the profession have
been more uniformly successful and have achieved more of the dignity
and true rewards of the painstaking and conscientious lawyer. He was
born September 21, 1855, in Contra Costa county, son of Nicholas and
Lois E. (Hastings) Hunsaker. His' father settled in California in 1847.
His mother's uncle, Lansing Warren Hastings, was a member of the
First Constitutional Convention of California.
Mr. Hunsaker was educated in the public schools of his native county
and San Diego and began work in the office of the Bulletin at San Diego.
He worked as a journeyman printer for the Bulletin and the San Diego
World two years and a half. He began the study of law in the office
of A. C. Baker, afterwards chief justice of the Supreme Court of Ari-
zona. He was admitted to the bar by the District Court of San Diego
county in 1876, and remained in that city in active practice until 1880.
He then spent a year at Tombstone, Arizona, and in 1882 was admitted
by the California Supreme Court. In that year he was elected district
attorney of San Diego county, serving until 1884. In 1887 he formed
a partnership with E. W. Britt as Hunsaker & Britt. Mr. Hunsaker
moved his offices to Los Angeles in 1892 and has been one of the leading
members of the bar of that cit}' for over a quarter of a century. In 1900
he and Mr. Britt again became partners.
He is a member of the California and American Bar Associations.
February 26, 1879, at San Diego, he married Florence Virginia McFar-
land. Their four children are Mary Cameron Brill, Florence King
Hunsaker, Rose Margaret Steehler and Daniel McFarland Hunsacker.
1
John Parkinson. The record of John Parkinson as an architect is
written in Los Angeles building history during the period of a quarter
of a century. In that time he has designed many of the most conspicuous
structures in the business and outlying districts.
He was born in England December 12, 1861, and acquired his literary
and technical education in his native country, graduating from the Me-
chanics' Institute at Bolton, and received his diploma in architecture and
building construction in 1882. He began the practice of architecture in
Napa, California, in 1888, and practiced in Seattle, Washington, from
January, 1889, to March, 1894.
Mr. Parkinson removed to Los Angeles in 1894. He was the designer
of the Currier, Laughlin, Grant, Johnson and Hibernian Buildings, the
Angelus Hotel, ]\Iaryland Hotel, California Club, Security Building, Title
Insurance Building, Central Building, Union Oil Building, Trust & Sav-
ings Building, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Pacific Mutual Building, Bul-
lock's Store, the Broadway Department Store, the Arcade Depot, and as
one example outside of California, the Utah Hotel Building at Salt Lake
City, and among the latest buildings are the Blackstone Building, Security
222 LOS ANGELES
National Bank Building, the Wholesale Terminal Buildings, and has
under construction the buildings for the University of Southern Cali-
fornia, the extension to Bullock's Store, and a number of other large
structures.
Mr. Parkinson is a member of the American Institute of Architects,
the Engineers' and Architects' Association, the State Board of Architec-
ture, and as a member of the California Club, Jonathan Club, Los Angeles
Athletic Club and the Los Angeles Country Club.
George J. Wilson, who has had a long and active experience in the
stock and bond business and is now head of \\'ilson, Lackey & Company,
stock and bond brokers and dealers in Los Angeles, came to Southern
California from Philadelphia, where he had most of his early years of
experience and training.
He was born in Belmont county, Ohio, December 11, 1878. His
father, Benjamin Wilson, also a native of Belmont county, was educated
at Mount Pleasant Boarding School, and for thirty years his chief busi-
ness duties were as treasurer of a Pike Road Association at Flushing,
Ohio. He was also director of the County Hospital and served in the
Legislature two terms, and became very prominent as a republican leader
in Ohio. He was chairman of his County Committee, and in that capa-
city was called upon to introduce William McKinley at a number of
places in Ohio where that eminent statesman was making his campaign
for presidency. In 1912 he was at Wheeling, West Virginia, and soon
after he had introduced William Taft to a public audience in that city
he was taken ill and died. He married in Columbiana county, Ohio,
Mary French. She was member of an old and prominent Quaker family
which had helped found the town of Salem in Ohio. Benjamin Wilson
and wife had four children : Dr. Joseph G. Wilson, who is now past
assistant' surgeon of the United States Public Health Service; Mrs. Al-
bertus L. Hoyle, of Haddon Heights, New Jersey; George J., and John
French, who is a graduate of a college in Ohio, of West Town Boarding
School near Philadelphia, of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and of
Harvard University. He was president of all his classes in all these
colleges but that of Harvard. He is now a successful lawyer at Cleve-
land.
George J. Wilson attended private schools, also was in college to
the age of nineteen, and then removed to Philadelphia, where for two
years he was in the service of the Provident Life Insurance Company.
He then bought Charles G. Gates' seat in the Philadelphia Stock Ex-
change and for five years was in the stock and bond brokerage business
as a member of Newport, Wilson & Company. On coming to Los An-
geles Mr. Wilson organized Wilson, Lackey & Company, of which he is
president. This stock and bond house issues a semi-monthly stock re-
port listing all securities.
Mr. Wilson is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, is a
republican, and is a birthright Quaker in religious faith. At Westchester,
Pennsylvania, May 17, 190O, he married Sarah E. Hofifman. They have
two children, George Howard, born in 1902, a former student of the
Los Angeles High School and now attending college, and Benjamin,
born in 1910, attending the Berkeley Hall private school.
The Tidings is the official organ of the diocese of Monterey and
Los Angeles, and is published by the Tidings Publishing Company, of
which W. E. Hampton is president.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 223
This journal, which means much to the CathoHc population of South-
ern California, was founded in 1895 under the name. Catholic Tidings.
Mr. P. W. Croake was the first editor. The name was soon afterwards
changed to The Tidings. In 1898 Mr. J. J. Bodkin bought a half interest
in the paper, and soon acquired full ownership. He held the editorial
chair from 1898 to 1904, when The Tidings was purchased by the late
Bishop Conaty, and a corporation was organized to continue its publica-
tion.
Under its new regime the first editor was Elmer Murphy, a graduate
of the Catholic University of America at Washington. Mr. Herman J.
Rodman, previously connected with the Los Angeles Express, was its
second editor, holding the chair from the spring of 1906 to July, 1907,
when, after a brief illness, he died.
The third editor, James Nolan, is now at the head of the Toledo
Catholic Record. He had charge of The Tidings for a year and a half,
and was succeeded temporarily by Rev. John J. Clififord, S. T. L., J. C. L.
Miss Alice Stevens occupied the position for some four years, resigning
in the fall of 1913.
The present editor, Charles Clifford Conroy, took charge in Novem-
ber, 1913. To his editorial office he brought many talents and attain-
ments not usually associated even with members of this brilliant pro-
fession.
Though a native of Colorado, Mr. Conroy was reared and educated
in Los Angeles. From 1904 to 1911 he was professor of history, astron-
omy and geolog}- in St. Vincent's College, and from 1911 to 1913 filled
a similar post in the new Jesuit institution now known as Loyola College.
Mr. Conroy is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society of London,
and member of a number of other astronomical societies, as well as of
the Societe Scientifique de Bruxelles, which has its headquarters at Lou-
vain, and is in some respects the premier Catholic scientific society of
Europe.
Mr. Conroy has written several serial and several shorter historical
articles, and has published a number of papers, technical and popular, in
astronomical journals. His specialties in this line of scientific research
are stellar brightness and stellar variability.
William F. Howard, one o£ the founders and vice-president ot the
Western Pipe and Steel Company, also vice-president of the Southwest-
ern Shipbuilding Company, two organizations that are highly significant
in the development of Los Angeles district's industries, is a man of wide
and varied experience in commercial affairs.
Born in County Down, Ireland, he attended the National Schools of
Ireland and the Royal School at Armagh, and at the age of seventeen
went to London and had one year of business life in that metropolis.
Coming to America, he located at Chicago, and later at Kansas City,
Missouri, and was for nine years connected with Armour & Company.
Mr. Howard also had some experience in handling public utilities in the
slate of Minnesota, and spent several years in New York City in various
enterprises.
Coming to Los Angeles, he was associated with Air. T.ilbot and
several others in organizing the Western Pipe and Steel Company, of
which he has ever since been vice-president and director. This is an
institution whose record has been marked by steady growth. It started
with a small plant and with twenty-five employes, and its present im-
portance is indicated by the fact that a thousand individuals are on the
224 LOS ANGELES
pay roll. The business covers the entire Pacific coast, with headquarters
at San Francisco, and with factories at Los Angeles and Taft, and branch
houses at Stockton, FresncJ and Bakersfield.
In March, 1918, Mr. Howard was one of the leaders in organizing
the Southwestern Shipbuilding Company, of which he is vice-president
and director. There is a special historical interest attaching to this com-
pany, since it is one of the most complete organizations on the Pacific
coast devoted to the great task of building up the American merchant
marine. The company started their plant on the southerly end of Ter-
minal Island, at the mouth of San Pedro Bay, April, 1918. They took a
stretch of desert land and in a few months had a completely equipped
shipyard and have already achieved results that few other organizations
in the country can equal. The firm was awarded a contract for building
twenty-three 8,800-ton ships for the emergency fleet corporation. On
the 19th of October, 1918, the first ship was launched from the Ways,
named the West Carnifax. The plant had been built in five months
nineteen days, and this first ship had been completed and launched in
seventy-seven working days. A second launching occurred December
31, a vessel of similar size went from the Ways named the West Caruth.
The general manager of the company is David Hollywood, who has been
a shipbuilder from boyhood, served his apprenticeship at Harland &
Wolflf's, in Belfast, Ireland.
Mr. Howard is also a director of the Hellman Commercial Trust &
Savings Bank, and a director of the Shaw-Butcher Ship Works at San
I'^ancisco. He is a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce,
che Los Angeles Athletic Club, California Club, and is a Mason.
At Mantorville, Minnesota, in June, 1903, he married Miss Caroline
A. Severance. They have two children: Francis Severance, aged four-
teen, a student in the public schools, and Caroline Elizabeth, a student in
St. Catherine's School for Girls. The daughter Caroline was sponsor at
the launching of the second boat. West Caruth.
Mrs. Howard is a sister of C. A. Severance, one of the foremost
lawyers of America. He was born at Mantorville, Minnesota, in 1862,
son of Erasmus C. and Amanda Julia (Arnold) Severance. He was
admitted to the bar in 1883 and is a member of the well-known St. Paul
law firm of Davis, Kellogg & Severance. He represented the United
States government in the litigation for dissolving the Harriman Railroad
System. He was present at the launching of the West Caruth at San
Pedro and went out on the trial trip of that boat. He is now attorney
for the United States Steel Corporation in the litigation brought by the
Federal authorities to dissolve it.
Walter F. Haas has been a resident of southern California thirty-
five years, has been a prominent lawyer engaged in an active civil practice
since 1891, and is also widely known as one of the eminent Masons of
the west.
Mr. Haas was born at the town of California, Missouri, November
12, 1869, a son of John B. and Lina W. (Bruere), Haas. His early
education was acquired in his native town, and on May 30, 1884, at the
age of fifteen, he came to California and finished his education in the
Los Angeles High School and studied law with the firm of Houghton,
Silent & Campbell, of Los Angeles. He was admitted by the Supreme
Court April 7, 1891, and the following year was admitted to practice in
the Federal Courts. For a quarter of a century he has been one of the
leading figures in the trial of important civil cases in the courts of this
^aJ^ A 'yV^'^-<^
FRUAl THE AlOUiNTAlNS TO THE SEA 225
district, and is regarded as one of the leading authorities on water law
and corporation law. In 1901 he formed a partnership with Frank Gar-
rett, and in 19(X) Harry L. Dunnigan entered the hrm. Since the death
of Mr. Garrett in 1911 the firm has been Haas & Dunnigan.
Mr. Haas has given his legal services to a number of business cor-
porations, and has served as president of the Tampico Land, Lumber &
Development Company, as director of the Guaranty Trust & Savings
Bank, as vice-president of C. J. Kubach Company, as director of the K.
& K. Brick Company and as president of the Fidelia Investment Com-
pany. During 1899-1900 he was city attorney of Los Angeles. In Oc-
tober, 1915, he was knighted Knight Commander of the Court of Honor
by the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite at Washington, D. C. He
is one of the committee on Grievances and Appeals of the Grand Lodge
of the State of California, is past master of Palestine Lodge No. 351,
A. F. and A. M., and a member of Al Malaikah Temple of the Mystic
Shrine. Mr. Haas is a member of the Gamut Club, Union League Club,
Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Bar Asso-
ciations. He resides at Alhambra, where recently he completed a beau-
tiful hollow tile concrete home of twenty-one rooms.
Mr.s. Harriet \V.\ugh P.\hl. Among the women of Los Angeles,
Mrs. Harriet Waugh Pahl, superintendent of the Angelus Hospital, is
socially and professionally prominent. Mrs. Pahl was born in Maine and
was left an orphan at an early age. Her father was an American of
English descent, and her mother a native of Nova Scotia. Her paternal
grandfather, a scion of one of the oldest New England families, in whose
home she was reared, was a man of unusual intellect and progressive
ideas, and because she was a girl and an orphan, he insisted that she
have a good business education. She was also given training in the
practical household arts and in early life accjuired a sense of individuality
as well as responsibility to the world.
For eight years Mrs. Pahl lived in Honolulu, a member of the house-
hold of Hon. Lawrence McCully, where she enjoyed many superior ad-
vantages. She was in Honolulu during the reign of the late King Kala-
kuaa and also while Queen Lilioukalani was on the throne during which
time there was maintained all the pomp and ceremony of a foreign court.
Each country being represented by an ambassador or minister plenipoten-
tiary and with the men of war of these nations always in the harbor,
life at Honolulu at that time was very gay and delightful.
Mrs. Pahl came to Los Angeles and took charge of the Good Samari-
tan Hospital in 1897. She was connected with that institution for four-
teen years and then went to the Angelus Hospital, where she has been
for nine years. This hospital has prospered wonderfully under her able
and capable management and ranks as one of the best in Los Angeles.
When she took charge the hospital was not profitable, but it is now
paying dividends and shows a fine financial rating. Mrs. Pahl is a
graduate of the Illinois Training School for Nurses of Chicago, in which
city she met and married Dr. P. C. LI. Pahl, now assistant professor in
the University of Southern California and chief of staff of the university
clinic. They have two children, a son fourteen years old and a daughter
twelve. Dr. and Mrs. Pahl are now building a delightful home of the
Swiss chalet type on a beautiful hillside near Elysian Park, overlooking
for many miles the picturesque San Fernando Valley.
Mrs. Pahl is a member of the Ebcll Club and of all the clubs of her
jirofession. Since coming to Los Angeles, Mrs. Pahl has worked nntir-
226 LOS ANCiELES
ingly in the interests of hospital betterment and high standards for
nurses, and is one of the best known and most respected hospital women
on the Pacific coast.
Herman Baruch for twenty years was distinguished in Los Angeles
as a hard-working, quiet and efficient business man, a builder of trade
and commerce, and at his death left a record of unimpeachable integrity
and widespread generosity.
He was born in Hechingen, Germany, April 26, 1860, a son of Solo-
mon and Babette Baruch. He attended the common schools, a boarding
school at Stuttgart to the age of sixteen, following which he clerked in
a mercantile house at Munich to the age of twenty, and after that at
Frankfort for two. years. On coming to Los Angeles, Mr. Baruch found
employment as a clerk in the wholesale grocery house of Hellman, Haas
& Company. In 1891 he was made a partner in the business, the name
being changed to Haas, Baruch & Company. With that well-known
enterprise his name and energies were identified until his death, on Octo-
ber 21, 1909. Successful in business, he was interested in public-spirited
movements and various charitable organizations, was a charter member
of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and Concordia Club, a republican voter
and an active member of the Jewish Faith.
At Montgomery, Alabama, June 27, 1892, he married Jeannette Meer-
tief. Mrs. Baruch is a director of the Jewish Orphans' Home and inter-
ested in various other charities. She is the mother of two children.
Elsie, the daughter, is a graduate of the Girls' Collegiate School, and
during the war was active in Red Cross v.'ork and was with the United
States Food Administration, and during 1919 was still connected with
the Red Cross. The son, Frederick H., born in Los Angeles, is a grad-
uate of the University of California and left his place with Haas, Baruch
& Company to join the first officers' training camp at the Presidio. He
was transferred to March Field and Fort Sill, was commissioned a second
lieutenant in the air service, and since his honorable discharge has re-
joined Haas, Baruch & Company as a salesman.
George L. Holton, president of the Turner Oil Company, has been
a prominent figure and constructive worker in the industrial situation
in California thirty-five years.
Of old New England stock, he was born at Northfield, Massachu-
setts, February 22, 1863, son of John Pomeroy and Stella (Tyler) Hol-
ton. At the age of seventeen, after completing his education in the gram-
mar and high schools, he went to New York City, and for a year was
with the Remington Arms Company. For several years Mr. Holton
was superintendent of agriculture of the Mount Herman School.
In 1884, on coming to California, he became superintendent of the
Bear Valley Irrigation Company. Mr. Holton and his associates planted
orchards, built irrigation ditches, divided large tracts of land, and laid
out the city of Redlands, giving the permanent industrial and agricul-
tural bent to that community. Mr. Holton had an active part in all that
work for ten years. In 1894 he removed to Los Angeles, and has since
been identified with much of the oil development in California. In 1899
he was made superintendent of construction with the Howard Oil Com-
pany. In 1901, having resigned, he organized the Densmore-Stabler
Refining Company and became its manager. This business was absorbed
in 1904 by- the Turner Oil Company, and Mr. Holton continued as man-
ager. Upon the death of M. W. Turner, in 1908, Mr. Holton was elected
president.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 227
The Turner Oil Company was one of the tirst to put down a well
in the Los Angeles territory. Later they accjuired oil interests in Whittier,
and they now have extensive holdings in Ventura county known as the
Mutual Oil Company and the Cosmopolitan Oil Company. The com-
pany's refinery is at Los Angeles, at 9th street and Santa Fe avenue.
Mr. Holton is president of the California ( )il E.xchange and vice
president of the Independent Petroleum Market Association. He has
an extremely useful recreation in the cultivation and management of a
seventy-acre grove of Valencia oranges in Orange county. In associa-
tion with his son as joint owner a six hundred forty acre tract in Tulare
county is devoted to stock raising.
Mr. Holton is a York and Scottisli Rite Mason and Shriner, a mem-
ber of the Sierra Madre Club, the Union League Club, and a republican
in politics. At Redlands September 25, 1885, he married Miss Fanny
L. Pratt.
Robert Goodyear Holton, only son of George L. Holton, was born
at Los Angeles, April 17, 1889. He attended the public schools, also
the Troop Institute at Pasadena, and since school days has been asso-
ciated with his father in business. He is now president of the Mtitual
Oil Company, secretary, treasurer and general manager of the Turner
Oil Company, a director in the Asphaltum and Oil Refining Company,
and a director in the Western Oil Company, oil distributors. He is a
York and Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner and is junior warden of
Golden West Commandery No. 43. He is also a member of the Sierra
Madre Club and the Jonathan Club and is a republican. February 22,
1917, at Selma, California, he married Netta Scott. They have one
child, John Pomeroy Holton, and this grandson of George L. Holton
represents the eleventh generation of the Holton family in America.
Cii.\RLES James \\'.\de recently rounded out a quarter of a cen-
tury of service as secretary of the State Mutual Building and Loan Asso-
ciation of Los Angeles. Organized in 1889, Mr. Wade became connected
with the company two years later and his individual abilities have played
an important part in the impressive record of this association. When
he first became connected with it the association had less than a hundred
thousand dollars in assets. .An official statement for July, 1919, shows
total assets of over four million four hundred thousand dollars, and it
now has outstanding in loans nearly four millions. Its management has
been at once conservative and progressive and the history of the com-
pany in detail would prove it a vital factor in the growth and develop-
ment of Los Angeles.
Mr. Wade, the secretary of the association, has had an active busi-
ness career beginning with his arrival in the City of Boston on January
10, 1872, on his eighteenth birthday. He was born in Suffolk County,
England, January 10, 1854. In 1869 when he was fifteen years old his
parents Mark Edward and Eliza Anne (Nazer) Wade crossed the ocean
and settled at Goderich, Ontario, Canada. His father had been a
gentleman fanner in England and in Canada he and his wife lived
retired. He died at Brussels and his wife at Stratford, Ontario. Charles.
J. was one of four sons and eight daughters. Three of the sons and
four of the daughters are living. Mr. Wade and his youngest sister
reside in Los Angeles, one sister is a resident of England, while the
others are in Illinois, near Chicago.
Charles James Wade attended the Queen Elizabeth grammar school
at Ipswich, England, from 1865 to 1869. During 1870-71 he was' a student
228 LOS ANGELES
of law at Goderich, Ontario. On arriving in Boston on his birthday as
above noted he became bookkeeper for Sanderson, Foster & Company,
and was with that concern until 1876. During 1877-82 he was book-
keeper for the New England News Company in Boston, and from 1882
to 1889 was credit man and bookkeeper for the U. S. Wind Engine and
Pump Company, of Kansas City, Missouri.
Mr. Wade came to California in June, 1889. He bought a fruit
ranch at Cucamonga, but in 1891 entered the service of the State Mutual
Buildinfi & Loan Association as a solicitor, and in 1892 was appointed
assistant secretary and in 1894 entered upon his long term of service as
secretary.
He sold his fruit ranch in 1896 and moved to Hollywood, built his
liome in that suburb in 1897 and he and his family have occupied it as
their family residence since 1898. Mr. Wade is a member and former
president of the California State League of Building & Loan Associa-
tions, was the first representative from the State at the National League
meetings, and had that honor on three different occasions. He is a
member of the executive committee of the National Organization. For
the past twenty years he has served as treasurer of St. Stephen's church
at Hollywood, is a former president of the Hollywood Community Sing,
and is a life member and treasurer of the Grand Council of California
of the Royal Arcanum. He is also affiliated with the Independent Otder
of Foresters, is a member, and for two years in succession was president,
of the Hollywood Board of Trade, is a member of the City Club of Los
Angeles, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, San Gabriel Valley Coun-
try Club.
At Boston, Massachusetts, December 9, 1876, he married Miss Mary
Ehzabeth Howard of that city. She died at the Hollywood home of
the family, September 1, 1907, the mother of three sons and one daugh-
ter. Mr. Wade also has five grandsons. His daughter Mabel Howard
spent seventeen months in France with the Red Cross, and soon after
her return was married, August 20, 1919, at the home in Hollywood,
to Rufus W. Balch, of Santa Monica. She is a graduate of the Good
Samaritan Hospital of Los Angeles. The son, Charles Howard Wade,
is assistant secretary of the State Mutual Building & Loan Association,
resides at Hollywood and has two sons. Franklin S. is superintendent
of operation of the Southern Counties Gas Company, as noted elsewhere
in this publication, also lives at Hollywood and has one son. Henry
Nazer, the youngest son, lives at Milwaukee and is the father of two
boys.
March 25, 1918, Mr. Wade married Isabella Raeburn Darling. She
was born at Montreal, Canada, of a Scotch-Canadian family of that city.
Mrs. Wade is also a graduate of the Good Samaritan Hospital at Los
Angeles, and is a member of the Alumnae Association and treasurer.
Franklin S. Wade. The work by which the name of Franklin S.
Wade stands out among Southern Califomians has been as engineer and
technical expert, first with the Los Angeles Gas & Electric Corporation,
and for the past several years with the Southern Counties Gas Company
of California. Primarily he furnished the technical skill and devised
many of the scientific methods for the manufacture of domestic gas from
crude oil. This is a California development pure and simple, and the
application of the methods on a broad scale by the gas companies of this
state has been of great service to the fuel-using public.
Mr. Wade was born at Kansas City. Missouri, July 27, 1885, but has
FROM Tl I !•: 1\1( )UNTA1NS TO Tl 1 K SKA 229
spent most of his life in Southern California. He is a son of C. J. and
Mary Elizabeth (Howard) Wade. His father on coming to California
settled on a fruit ranch at Cucamonga, but for the past twenty-eight
years has been secretar}' and manager of the State Mutual Building and
Loan Association of Los Angeles. The mother died in Los Angeles
September 1, 1907. There are four children: Mabel H., who from
March, 1918, until the summer of 1919 was engaged in Red Cross work
in France; Charles H., who is assistant secretary with his father in the
Building and Loan Association ; Franklin S. and Henry H., connected
with the Cutler-Hammer Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Franklin S. Wade was about four years old when his parents came to
California. He was educated in the old Cahuenga Pass School at Holly-
wood, and took his preparatory and collegiate work in the University of
Southern California. He graduated with the A. B. degree in 1908. In
the meantime, in 1905, he had entered the service of the Los Angeles
Gas and Light Corporation as a chemist, and continued in that capacity
with them until 1912. Since then he has been superintendent of opera-
tion for the Southern Counties Gas Company. This company has made
a specialty of distributing the natural gas by-product of the oil fields,
and many of the methods, processes and devices for the utilization of
this natural gas and its distribution have been perfected with the tech-
nical advice of Mr. Wade. This natural gas produced with petroleum
has some distinct advantages and differences from artificial gas or the
natural gas of eastern states. Primarily its superiority consists in the
higher number of heating units, in fact almost double the number of
British thermal units contained in artificial gas. In distributing this gas
the company found it necessary to alter or replace much of the apparatus
already installed in the homes and factories, the results being a much
superior heating service and a correspondingly smaller cost per unit to
domestic consumers.
While the chief territory supplied by the Southern Counties Gas
Company is Orange county, the company's headquarters are in Los
Angeles, in the Corporation Building, where Mr. Wade has his head-
quarters.
He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers,
the American Gas Association and the Pacific Coast Gas Association,
and also belongs to the San Gabriel Valley Country Club and the Auto-
mobile Club of Southern California. He comes of an Episcopalian family,
and in politics is conservative and independent. April 15, 1914, at Los
Angeles, he married Carol D. Cooke, daughter of H. Jay and Ann Louise
(Russell) Cooke. The Cookes are an old Connecticut family. Mrs.
Wade was born in South Dakota and educated there. Her father is in
the real estate business in South Dakota, handling chiefly his own prop-
erties. Her mother died in that state in June, 1919. Mr. and Mrs. Wade
have one son, Franklin Russell Wade, bom at Los Aneeles March 24
1918.
William Mulholland is the designer and builder of the famous
Los Angeles Aqueduct. Those who know how much of his real life has
entered into this magnificent undertaking do not hesitate to call him its
creator. Los Angeles for years has looked forward to the completion
of this enterprise, and now that the water mains of the city are flushed
with the sparkling waters of Owens River brought by means of the
Aqueduct a distance of two hundred and fifty miles from the Sierra
Nevada Mountains the achievement is properly regarded as marking a
230 LOS ANGELES
new era in the history of the city. It is without question the greatest
aqueduct in the world, surpassing- manifold the famous aqueducts of
the old Roman Empire. The Aqueduct ^vas built at a cost of nearly
twenty-five million dollars and it was WiUiam MulhoUand who in his
capacity as chief engineer of the Los Angeles Waterworks devised the
plans, estimates, and superintended the construction of the water way
from end to end. Engineers from all over the world, men famous in the
profession, studied and admired this tremendous construction, and have
given Mr. MulhoUand the highest degree of professional praise.
Los Angeles owes to Mr. MulhoUand gratitude not for the Aqueduct
alone, but for a constant and continuing service as chief engineer of its
waterworks system for more than thirty years. As a hydraulic engineer
Mr. MulhoUand is undoubtedly one of the most eminent in the world
today.
He was born at Belfast, Ireland, September 11, 1855, son of Hugh
and Ellen (Deakers) MulhoUand. In his youth he attended public
schools and Christian Brothers College at Dublin, Ireland, and as a
young man came to the United States and lived in Pittsburgh before
removing to California in 1877. It was in 1886 that he was appointed
chief engineer of the City Water Company, at that time a private cor-
poration. He has been superintendent and chief engineer ever since and
was retained in the same capacity when Los Angeles took over the
water company in 1902. Few men have been so successful in choosing
the field of their professional work. Besides his official duties at Los
Angeles Mr. MulhoUand has for forty years been a student of condi-
tions in southern California and has designed and constructed a large
number of great irrigation systems and water power projects for which
the Los Angeles district is famous.
As a tribute to Mr. Mulholland's eminence in the engineering pro-
fession the University of California in 1914 conferred upon him the
honorary degree LL. D. He is a member of the American Society of
Civil Engineers, of the Pacific Association of Consulting Engineers, is
a charter member of the Engineers & Architects Association of South-
ern California, is an 'honorary member of the National Association of
Stationary Engineers, and a member of the Seismological Society of
America. He is an honorar)' member of the Tau Beta Pi and belongs
to the California, Sunset and Celtic Clubs, and a member of political
and progressive organizations. In politics he is nonpartisan.
July 3, 1890, Mr. MulhoUand married at Los Angeles, Lillie Fer-
guson, who died April 28, 1915. They became the parents of five chil-
dren: Rosa, Perry, Lucile, Thomas and Ruth.
Hon. Aurelius W. Hutton. It is a rare distinction enjoyed by
Aurelius W. Hutton — a continuous and active membership in the Los
Angeles bar for half a century, and there is not now practicing at this
bar any lawyer who preceded him. During all this time his profession
has represented to him a means of service to others, as well as to him-
self, and many of the honors most prized by a lawyer have been bestowed
upon him.
Judge Hutton was born in Green county, Alabama, July 23, 1847.
His grandfather, General Joseph Hutton, was born in South Carolina
in 1769, and married Nancy Calhoun, a cousin of the great southern
statesman, John C. Calhoun. The grandfather, with his family, settled
in Green county, Alabama, about 1821, and died there a year or so after-
ward. Their son, Dr. Aquila D. Hutton, was born in Abbeville district
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 23,1
of South Carolina, April 8, 1805. He married Elizabeth H. Tutt, who
was born in Edgefield district of South Carolina in 1812. To their mar-
riage were born six sons and two daughters. The father died in Decem-
ber, 1852, at the age of forty-seven, survived by five children, and his
wife passed away in February, 1854, at the age of forty-two. Their
surviving daughter, Eugenia Floride, had married in 1853, David H.
Williams, a physician, who became guardian to the four orphan boys and
gave them a welcome in his own home. Aurelius W. Hutton has always
given his sister and her husband credit for much of his success in life.
When he was ten years old the family home was moved to Gainesville,
Alabama. At the age of sixteen Judge Hutton entered the University
of Alabama, a military school at Tuscaloosa, and with the Alabama Corps
Cadets saw some active service in behalf of the Confederacy until April,
1865. All four of the brothers were in the Confederate service. The
eldest was killed, as herinafter noted ; the second, Aquila D., was in the
Thirty-sixth Alabama Regiment, was wounded at Chickamauga and
thereafter served as lieutenant in the Sixteenth Confederate Cavalry.
His younger brother, Emmett C, was under fire April 4, 1865, one
month before he was fifteen years of age.
After General Lee's surrender Aurelius W. Hutton returned to his
home with his Springfield rifle and accouterments and turned them over
to the Federal provost marshal at Gainesville, took the oath of allegiance
and was paroled. The war swept away all his own inheritance and
devastated the property of the family, and he had to face vastly different
circumstances to those to which the family had so long become accus-
tomed. He took up the study of law in the office of Bliss & Snedecor at
Gainesville about January, 1866, his brother-in-law paying a hundred
dollars a year for special instruction. Mr. Bliss was a native of New
Hampshire and an elderly lawyer of great ability and had been a college
classmate of President Franklin Pierce. Mr. Bliss had at one time also
been a member of the firm of Bliss & Baldwin, his partner being Joseph
G. Baldwin, author of the book of most entertaining sketches, "The
Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi," and subsequently distinguished
in California as chief justice of the Supreme Court. Mr. Hutton spent
eighteen months with the firm of Bliss & Snedecor, and in the fall of
1867 entered the law department of the University of Virginia. At that
time the University of Virginia Law School was one of the most rigid
in its requirements and curriculum, and a diploma had a current accept-
ance recognized by the profession throughout all the states. Mr. Hutton
combined both the junior and senior courses in one year, and came under
the instruction of that great law professor, John B. Minor, and was able
to graduate in June, 1868, being one of thirty-seven graduates in a senior
class of about seventy. Upon attaining his majority a few weeks later,
Mr. Hutton vi'as, in January, 1869, without examination, admitted to
practice by the Supreme Gourt of Alabama upon his B. L. degree from
the University of Virginia. In January, 1869, he left Alabama with
the Travis family, bound for California, the journey being by way of the
Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco, and thence to Los Angeles.
Judge Flutton arrived at Los Angeles April 5, 1869. The prevailing
characteristic of the little city of five thousand was the atmosphere of
old Spanish and ]\Iexican regime. The first trans-continental railway
was just being completed. Mr. Hutton had a vision of a great future
for Los Angeles, though doubtless surpassed by the reality which he now
knows. Identifying himself thoroughly with the community, he entered
the office of Glassell & Chapman, in the Temple Block. It was the agree-
232 LOS ANGELES
ment that his only pay should be board and lodging, but the firm appre-
ciated his ability and paid him $50 for the first month. One of the in-
teresting facts in connection with Judge Hutton's fifty years of member-
ship in the Los Angeles bar is that for forty-six years he was continuously
an occupant of the old Temple Block, and after being some months in
the Haas Block, has more recently established his offices in the Wilcox
Block. But for many years he worked in an unchanged environment,
though surrounded on every side by change and progress and develop-
ment, with lofty business structures rising about him, and with the intro-
duction of all the growing complexity of modern municipal life. Among
his associates in practice have been numbered Judge Henry M. Smith,
E. H. Chapman, Col. John F. Godfrey, Judge "W. H. Clark and Judge
OHn Welborn. His last partner was Mr. Williams, his nephew, under
the firm name of Hutton & Williams, but since the partnership was dis-
solved, January 1, 1917, Mr. Hutton has practiced alone.
During these many years Judge Hutton has again and again been
called to the responsibilities of public life. In December, 1872, he was
elected city attorney of Los Angeles, and was the first man to hold the
office for two consecutive terms. In 1874, alone with his pen — there be-
ing here no stenographer nor typewriter — he drafted the first special
charter for Los Angeles, the city having previously been governed under
the general incorporation act and several special statutes. In 1876, acting
with the City Council, he revised the charter, and every city charter since
then has contained many of the wise provisions of that of 1874. As city
attorney, Mr. Hutton also assisted in drafting the ordinance granting the
first franchise for a street railway, and conducted the legal proceedings
for the condemnation of rights of way donated by the city to the Southern
Pacific Railroad Company. After considerable efifort, he also convinced
the local officials and brought about the requisite formality of complaint,
warrant and commitment in the criminal procedure of the Municipal
Court. When, in February, 1887, the number of superior judges of Los
Angeles county was increased from two to four, Mr. Hutton received on
the first ballot eighty per cent of the vote of the local bar recommending
his appointment by the governor, although there were six candidates
before the meeting. He was appointed by Governor Bartlett, and in the
distribution of the business of the court that followed, in which he had
no voice, he was assigned three-fourths of all the common law and equity
cases tried without juries and nearly all the law and motion calendar.
In his own department he never had a jury, but when presiding for other
judges, he tried a few cases with juries. Perhaps the most important
case coming under his jurisdiction was that between the Southern Pacific
Railroad Company and Coble, with reference to overlapping land grants
to the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company and the St. Paul Railroad
Company. Judge Hutton found for the defendant in a case involving
160 acres, thereby declaring the land excepted from the grant to the St.
Paul Railroad Company and opening the land to settlement. This was
in July, 1888, and was the first decision of any court on this important
question, and to Judge Hutton this credit is due, though more than once
the credit has been given to another whose decisions in favor of the St.
Paul Railroad Company were reversed by the, Supreme Court of the
United States in an opinion establishing the law precisely as it was held
to be in the Coble case. See 39 Fed. R. 140, decided in 1889, and 46
Fed. R. 683, decided in 1892; also 146 U. S. Supreme Court Reports
570, decided in 1892, and the record in the Coble case in the county clerk's
office. The decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court are binding on the in-
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 23.?
ferior courts aiifl they have of course decided these questions against the
Railroad Company since the decision in the 146 U. S. Reports.
At the election in November, 1888, when the republican ticket, headed
by Harrison for president, swept everything before it. Judge Hutton,
with the whole democratic ticket, went down to defeat. In August, 1889,
he was appointed by Judges Field and Ross to fill a temiiorary vacancy
in the office of the United States district attorney, serving for six months.
He was subsequently appointed by President Harrison's attorney general
special counsel for the United States in the several cases known as the
Hata cases, involving questions growing out of violations by the Chilian
insurgents of the neutrality laws of the United States. In 1901 he was
elected a member of a Board of Freeholders to prepare a new charter
for the city. He was chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the board.
He suggestefl the illegality of the boards, and on its order arranged and
supervised a test case in the courts. The Supreme Court of the state
sustained iiim in his view. (See 131 Cal. 263). The Board, however,
continued its work and completed the charter, relying upon the province
of the council to submit the charter to a vote of the people as amendments
prepared or proposed by it. This could have been legally done, but it
was never done. It was doubtless opposed by some power which con-
trolled the council.
Judge Hutton was a stockholder in the San Gabriel Orange Grove
Association, the corporation that bought the land and laid out the city of
Pasadena. He has filled all the chairs in Golden Rule Lodge No. 160,
I. O. O. F., of which he has been a member since September, 1871. He
is also a member of the Society of Los Angeles Pioneers, the Los An-
geles Bar Association and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. He
was honored with an appointment by Gen. John R. Gordon, commander-
in-chief United Confederate Veterans, as major general of the Pacific
division of the United Confederate Veterans, and was subsequently elected
for a second term. His division was territorially the largest of all, extend-
ing to and including Colorado and New Mexico.
Februarj^ 24, 1874, Judge Hutton married Kate Irene Travis. She
was born at Gainesville, Alabama, May 3, 1851, and died February 1,
1915. Her father, Amos Travis, was born in North Carolina about 1805,
and brought his family to Los Angeles in 1869, Judge Hutton, as has
been noted above, being one of the party. Amos Travis returned to Ala-
bama in 1885, and died there August" 2, 1886. He married Eliza A.
Coleman, who was born about 1820, and died in Alabama April 26, 1896.
Judge and Mrs. Hutton had three sons and seven daughters. The oldest,
Kate, who died April 11, 1897, had married in the previous year Raphael
W. Kinsey, and she left an infant son, Aurelius R. Kinsey, who at the
age of twenty volunteered as a member of Company E, One Hundred
Seventeenth United States Engineers, in the Rainbow Division, and who
has recently returned to his home. The second child, Aurelius W. Jr.,
died at the age of nineteen, on April 13, 1895, being a young man of
brilliant promise in the field of electrical discovery and invention. The
seventh child. Irene, died May 22, 1895, at the age of eight. The tenth
child died in infancy. The other children of Judge Hutton are Mignon-
ette ; William Bryan, who was named for Judge Hutton's brother, who,
while a lieutenant of Company A of the Fifth Alabama Batallion. Arch-
er's Brigade, A. P. Hill's Division, Stonewall Jackson's Corps, was killed
at the battle of Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863 ; Helen, wife of P. G. Win-
nett, vice-president of the Bullock Company at Los Angeles ; Elizabeth,
surviving wife of Louis Adams, who died November 1, 1918; Travis
234 LOS ANGELES
Calhoun, and Eugenia, Mrs. Wilkinson. Travis C. made more than one
effort to volunteer and went to Toronto, Canada, to join the Royal Avia-
tion Corps, but on each attempt was rejected because of his light weight.
Finally, being passed on the draft for clerical service, and disliking that,
he was permitted to enter the Spruce Division and he served in that
until his discharge. On January 9, 1916, Judge Hutton married Mrs.
Rose A. Seymour, and they now reside at 1704 Ocean avenue, Santa
Monica.
Henry R. Coate. The largest wholesale dry goods house in south-
ern California is the Cooper, Coate & Casey Dry Goods Company, at Los
Angeles, a business established in 1906, and which has made a tremen-
dous growth, with trade connections all over the southwest, in the Latin
American countries to the south and nearly across the Pacific to the
Philippine Islands. The company is solely engaged in the wholesale dis-
tribution of dry goods, notions, ladies' and men's furnishings, ready-to-
wear garments, floor coverings, etc. Their main building is a large five-
story structure at Seventh and Los Angeles streets, in addition to which
they operate garment factories in a large individual building, have a com-
plete warehouse in Los Angeles and permanent sample rooms at El Paso,
Texas, Phoenix and Nogales, Arizona, at El Centro, San Diego, Fresno
and San Francisco, and in Honolulu and Manila. The traveling repre-
sentatives of the company cover all the southwestern states and also
Mexico, Central and South America and the Orient. A New York
office is also maintained at 377 Broadway.
The executive officers of the company are M. G. Cooper, president ;
H. R. Coate, first vice-president ; Edward Casey, second vice-president,
and G. Danielson, secretary and treasurer.
Henry R. Coate was in business on the Pacific Coast nearly
forty years. His own career is a contribution to the family record of
Americanism. Mr. Coate was born at Troy in Miami county, Ohio, a
son of John H. and Jane (Coppock) Coate, both natives of the same
county and representatives of some of the very earliest families estab-
lished in southwestern Ohio. Both the Coate and Coppock families have
been Quakers in religious faith as far back as the record runs. • Mr.
Coate's great-grandfather was Marmaduke Coate, the fourth in as many
successive generations of that name. It is a part of the family history
that the original Marmaduke Coate came from England and with his
brother-in-law, Moses Coppock, obtained from the Indians a land grant
of four thousand acres at Philadelphia. They leased this land tor a
period of ninety-nine years, and that lease recently expired. Henry R.
Coate happens to be one of the third generation of heirs, and is related
fo the original lessors through two lines. The land is now valued at
about fifty millions of dollars. Great-grandfather Marmaduke Coate
went to South Carolina from Pennsylvania, and in that state was born
his son Henry Coate, grandfather of the Los Angeles merchant. Henry
Coate came to Miami county, Ohio, in 1803, but had to leave that county
on account of fear of the Indians, though he subsequently returned and
had a farm and also a blacksmith shop. In his shop he made many of
the sickles with which the grain of the pioneer farmers was cut. He
died in 1848, in his seventy-eighth year. Both he and his father were
local ministers of the Quaker church.
John H. and Jane (Coppock) Coate died on the farm where Henry
R. Coate was born. The latter was the oldest of four children ; his broth-
er Warren is a resident of Piqua, Ohio ; his sister, Mrs. Edwin Yount,
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 235
resides at Urbana, Ohio; while the other son, Orlestus, died at the age
of thirteen.
Mr. Coate was educated in the pubhc schools of Ohio, attended
Earlham College, the noted Quaker institution at Richmond, Indiana,
and at the age of seventeen his father set him to work in a dry goods
store at Troy. In 1864 he was selling goods in his uncle's store at the
then prevailing war scale of prices. At the time of his death he had been
in the dry goods business for a period of over half a centurv-. He traveled
for the wholesale dry goods firm of John Shillito & Company, of Cincinnati,
until 1876, then for a few years was traveling representative for a Philadel-
phia house, and in 1881 came to the Pacific Coast. He first had charge
of Hale Brothers branch store at Petaluma, California, three years, spent
a similar career with Winestock, Bloom & Company, of Sacramento, and
then became connected with the jobbing firm of Murphy, Grant & Com-
pany, at San Francisco as traveling salesman. His headquarters were
at Seattle and he represented that firm until December, 1893. Air. Coate
then became Pacific Coast representative for the J. & P. Coates Thread
Company, serving them capably for seven years, until 1900, when all
the principal thread companies were merged into the Spool Cotton Com-
pany. While with the Thread Company his headquarters were in San
Francisco.
His next connection was with Levi, Strauss & Company, whole-
sale dry goods merchants of San Francisco, and this business connection
brought him to Los Angeles as his headquarters. He was with that
firm until the earthquake of 1906, and in that year he became one of the
principals in organizing the Cooper, Coate & Casey Company.
The rise of this company to prominence in commercial circles is
probably well known to many southern Calif ornians. Their first estab-
lishment was a modest three-storv' building on Los Angeles street, be-
tween 5th and 6th streets. After about six years they moved to the
present site of their main building at the corner of Los Angeles street
and Seventh street, where they have five floors and basement in addition
to the other warehouses and factories owned and operated by them.
Mr. Coate was a birthright Quaker and has always remained true to
the faith of his early youth. He was a member of all the Masonic bodies,
York and Scottish Rite, a member of the Union League Club, Jonathan
Club, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and his family have long been
prominent socially in Los Angeles.
In June, 1880, he married Miss Virginia Winans, of Ohio, a na-
tive of Illinois. Mrs. Coate is a prominent social and fraternal leader,
being a member of the Woman's City Club of Los Angeles, and is
grand associate matron of the grand chapter of California, Eastern Star,
and in the spring of 1919 was also chosen grand royal matron of the
Grand Court, Order of the Amaranth of California.
The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Coate, Gertrude, is a native daugh-
ter of California and was educated in Los .\ngeles. Mr. Coate died Feb-
ruary 0, 1920. The family have made their home at the Ingrahami Hotel.
Cl.\rk J.w ]\Iilliron, whose offices are in the Trust and Savings
Building, is a lawyer who has gained the reputation of being an expert
on the complicated subjects of Federal income tax law, and the bulk of
his practice is in connection with that difficult subject.
Mr. Milliron, who is a veteran of the Philippine war and for a num-
ber of years was in the Philippine Civil Service, was born at Chamber-
lain, South Dakota, December 21, 1879, a son of Dr. L. and Phoebe
230 LOS ANGELES
(Stine) Milliron. As a boy in South Dakota he attended public schools
at Kimball, also the Ward Academy, and at the age of fourteen a private
tutor was brought into the home for his benefit. At sixteen he entered
the high school at Sioux City, Iowa, graduating a year later. During
the Philippine insurrection he enlisted in the United States Hospital
Corps as a first-class private and remained with the army until honorably
discharged in February, 1904. He remained in the Philippines as a
Civil Service employe, being supervising revenue agent. He also studied
law at night, and in December, 1912, returned to the States, spending
his vacation in Los Angeles. In June, 1913, he entered the National
University Law School at Washington. D. C, and was graduated in
June, 1915, receiving the degrees LL. B. and LL. M. The university
gold medal was bestowed upon him in recognition of his standing in all
subjects and courses.
After graduating, Mr. Milliron came to Los Angeles, was admitted
to the California bar and United States courts, and has since had a busy
practice. He is a member of Henry S. Orme Lodge No. 458, F. and
A. M., is a Royal Arch, Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a member
of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, International Association of Lions
Clubs, Los Angeles City Club, the Bar Association, Automobile Club
of Southern California, the Sigma Nu Phi college fraternity, and in
politics is independent.
Mr. Milliron married Miss Edith Morgan on September 21, 1909, at
Manila, Philippine Islands. They have two children : Grace Elizabeth,
born at Manila Mav 12, 1913, and Jay William, born at Los Angeles June
2, 1915. ' ■ ■ ■
John Munro, who has been a resident of California since 1898, is a
lawyer of exceptional ability both in the criminal branch of his profes-
sion and also as a counsellor in mining litigation. He has been asso-
ciated with several prominent members of the Los Angeles bar at dif-
ferent times, but is now alone in practice, with offices in the Bryson
Block.
He was born at Dominionville, Canada, November 2, 1874, a son of
Dr. James T. and Christina (Robertson) Munro. His parents are still
living in Montreal. For years his father was a prominent surgeon in
that city, a graduate of McGill LTniversity of Montreal. He held the
rank of captain in the British army and served in that capacity in the
Fenian raid of 1872. For years he was prominent in the conservative
wing of Dominion political parties and at one time was slated for the
cabinet in the provincial government of Montreal. John Munro is the
oldest of three children. His brother, Dr. James Howard, is a Montreal
surgeon and served with the rank of captain in the Medical Corps Of the
French army during the European war. The daughter, Olive, is the
wife of Doctor O'Hara, a physician at Montreal.
Mr. John Munro was educated in the public schools of Ottawa,
Canada, received his A. B. degree from Queen's University at Kingston
in 1896, did post-graduate work in Manitoba University at Winnipeg in
1897, and finished his law course in the Nashville College of Law, re-
ceiving his LL. B. degree in 1898. He came to California that year,
and in 1906 was admitted to the bar of this state, and since 1910 has had
a large amount of practice in the Federal courts. He was associated
with the Los Angeles law firm of Harris & Harris in 1906-07. He has
also practiced in Nevada, having a branch office in the Gazette Building
at Reno, from which he handles his mining litigation. Mr. Munro is
\^ /X^^^Am^
FRO:\I THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 237
fond of the criminal branch of the law. During 1908 he was associated
in practice with Gen. Johnston Jones, practiced alone during 1909, and
in 1910 was senior member of "the firm Munro & Robertson. He was
also associated with Judge Pirkey, a former Superior Court judge. The
firm of Munro & Pirkey continued three years, until Judge Pirkey went
to the state of Washington to take a government position, and is now
on the Superior bench of that state.
Mr. Munro is an active republican, is affiliated with San Fernando
Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is past master of San
Fernando Lodge No. 343, F. and A. M., and is a Scottish Rite Mason.
He is a member of the Municipal League, Union League, City Club,
Chamber of Commerce, California State Bar Association, and in religion
is a Christian Scientist.
September 6, 1911, at Riverside, California, he married Miss Jane
Harriss. She was born and educated at Omaha, being a graduate'of the
Omaha High School and the Jones College of Music of that city. Mr.
and Mrs. Munro have one daughter. Norma K.. born in Los Angeles.
F"Kr-;DERiCK A. Wickersham is a young California business man,
grandson of a California pioneer, and since leaving the naval service
has been head of the Frederick A. Wickersham Company, distributors
and sales agents at Los Angeles for the Daniels car. The Daniels car
is an automobile that has been manufactured for seven years by the
George E. Daniels Company, and has found increasing favor and pat-
ronage with that portion of the automobile buying public content only
with the best and most efficient car and of finest design and workman-
ship. The Daniels car is the product of the former chief designer of
the Simplex automobile.
Mr. Wickersham was born at Petaluma, California, August 17, 1896,
a son of Frederick A., Sr., and grandson of L G. Wickersham, who came
to California in 1851 across the plains, locating at Petaluma, where he
established one of the first banks of the state. Upon his death his son
Frederick took over the management of the bank and was its active
head until his death in 1901. Frederick A. Wickersham, Sr., was born
at Petaluma, was educated in the grammar and high schools there,
graduated from the University of California, and in addition to his office
as president of the Petaluma Bank was largely interested in sugar, oil
and lands, and in many ways was a leader and a man of great useful-
ness in the northern part of the state. Frederick A. Wickersham, Jr..
attended public schools, Mount Tamalpais Military School, graduated in
1914 from the Belmont Militar)^ Academy at Belmont. California, and
until 1917 continued his education in Stanford University. Early in
the war with Germany lie enlisted in the navy as a sailor, was advanced
to petty officer, and at the signing of the armistice was commissioned en-
sign. He received his honorable discharge January 11, 1919, and at
once located at Los Angeles and secured the agency for the Daniels auto-
mobile.
Mr. Wickersham is a member of the Theta Chi and Phi Delta Theta
college fraternities, the Olympic Club of San Francisco, the Los Angeles
Athletic Club, and while in the service was a member of the Illinois
Athletic Club and the Boston Athletic Club.
Bi^iucE Hopkins C.^ss has been a merchant and manufacturer at Los
Angeles for over thirty years, and through his business and personal in-
fluence has always been working with the constructive forces in the up-
building of the Southern California metropolis.
238 LOS ANGELES
He was born at Albion, New York, September 16, 1858. His father,
Pliny Cook Cass, was born in New Hampshire in 1819, of old New Eng-
land stock. Pliny C. Cass spent many years in California, coming out
in 1850 and again in 1854, but soon returned to the East. In February,
1888, he brought his family out and settled permanently. Following the
Civil war he had moved to southwestern Missouri, and after that war
lived in Indian Territory for several years.
Bruce Hopkins Cass spent ten years of his early life as a United
States licensed Indian trader in old Indian Territory. He had acquired
all his education near Joplin, Missouri, but his opportunities have been
largely of his own creation. About 1888 he engaged in the har4ware
business at Los Angeles, and soon afterward established the Cass
Brothers Stove Company, his associate being his brother, A. B. Cass.
After two years they consolidated with E. E. Crandall, and about two
years later Mr. John Smurr bought the Crandall interests, at which time
the Cass-Smurr Company came into existence. In 1890 Mr. Cass also
bought a stock of goods at Winslow, Arizona, and at is required three
years to dispose of this general merchandise, he spent much of his time
back and forth between Los Angeles and Winslow. In 1893 he estab-
lished another business firm, known as Nauerth & Cass Hardware Com-
pany. Their store was at 324 South Spring street, while the Cass Stove
Company was at 316 South Spring. In 1896 Nauerth & Cass moved to
the present location of the business, 412-414 South Broadway. That
was then an out-of-the-way section of the city, and the temporary quar-
ters of the firm was an old adobe building until a more suitable struc-
ture could be provided. While the location of the business was regarded
unfavorably by the friends of Mr. Cass, his foresight proved his wis-
dom, and today this store is in the very center of the business district.
About ten years ago another change was made in the firm, when Mr.
Damerel bought the interest of Mr. Nauerth, the resulting organization
being the Cass-Damerel Hardware Company. Later the stove interests
were consolidated and the new business title was the Cass-Smurr-
Damerel Company.
In February, 1919, Mr. Cass resigned as president of this corpora-
tion to devote all his time to a new company called the Cass Manufac-
turing Company, manufacturing all kinds of heating and ventilating ap-
pliances for public buildings, and all classes of hotel, restaurant and
kitchen equipment and fixtures. The leased quarters of the new busi-
ness are at 332 South Spring street. The company manufactures ranges
and other appliances unexcelled in quality. As a firm they have prac-
tically no competition on the Pacific coast. The company has already
installed equipment for new hotels and other institutions.
Mr. Cass is an old line republican. He is treasurer and director of
the Edmonds Midway Oil Company. He has given his time to business,
home and family, and outside of these interests has seldom identified
himself with clubs or with politics, though he is recognized for his
eminent public spirit and his helpful co-operation with that body of
citizens who have developed Los Angeles during the last three decades.
At Los Angeles, October 8, 1890, he married Louise Hunter, of
Mansfield, Ohio. Mrs. Cass is quite prominent socially and during the"
war gave all her time to auxiliary movements. She is a former vice-
president of the Ebell Club. They have three children. The daughter
Ruth is the wife of Harry Elliott, a Los Angeles lawyer. The other
daughter, Bernice, is the wife of Dudley Watson, and lives at St. Louis.
Before her marriage she was her father's secretary and had a very
thorough business training.
FROM THE MOUN'l'AlNS TO THE SEA 239
The only son, Clarence Cass, now twenty-seven years of age, is also
associated with his father in business, was educated in Los Angeles
schools and in Stanford University. At the beginning of the war with
Germany he left his business affairs to enlist in the National Army, was
trained "at Camp Lewis and Camp Kearney, and became corjjoral in the
Headquarters Company of the One Hundred Sixtieth Infantry. He
was one of three selected from a thousand picked men at Camp Kearney
to go overseas wi'th this Headquarters Company. Not one report of his
was ever returned for correction. He spent nearly two years overseas.
Charles H.m.sey Elmendouf, real estate and investments, directing
one of the large business organizations of that kind in Los Angeles, has
been identified with this line of work for forty years, his experience
covering the Middle West and Pacific Coast.
He was born in Brooklyn, Ne\y^ York, September 14, 1858, son of
Rev. Anthony and Sarah (Clark) nlmendorf. His father was of pure
Holland-Dutch stock, and his mother of English stock. Jan Elmendorf
came to America from Leyden, Holland, in 1620, and settled on the
Hudson River at a point afterward known as the city of Kingston. Rev.
Anthony Elmendorf, D. D., was born at Kingston, in Ulster county,
New York, and many of the family still reside there. The Elmendorf s
were represented by soldiers in the Revolution as well as in the Civil
war. A Jan Elmendorf was on Governor Clinton's stafif.. The military
record of the family may be completed by referring to Charles H. Elmen-
dorf Jr., son of the Los Angeles business man. He recently returned
from nineteen months of service with the Fourteenth United States In-
fantry, having enlisted at the age of eighteen as a raw recruit, and was
mustered out as a battalion sergeant major at the age of twenty. Rev.
Anthony Elmendorf built and for many years was pastor of the Clare-
mont Avenue Dutch Reformed Church in Brooklyn. His wife, who was
a native of New Brunswick, New Jersey, represented a family of mer-
chants and bankers.
Charles H. Elmendorf entered grammar school at New Brunswick,
New Jersey, and completed his education in Rutgers College. For four
years he was in the wholesale paper business in New York City, but has
lor the last forty years been in the real estate and investment business.
For some years he was also a breeder of Hereford cattle and served as
president of the American Hereford Association. During his residence
in the Middle West he was a private banker in Iowa.
Mr. Elmendorf is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the
Chamber of Commerce, and for many years has been an active Presby-
terian and is now a member of the Wilshire Presbyterian Church.
September 22, 1880, at Warsaw, New York, he married Jeanie Frank,
daughter of George W. Frank of Warsaw. Her mother was a McNair,
of pure Scotch ancestr}'. Her grandmother was a Pierpont. The Frank
family was prominent in Western New York as merchants, bankers and
politicians. Augustus Frank, an uncle of Mrs. Elmendorf, was a mem-
ber of Congress three times during the Civil war, and represented his
district with distinction. George W. Frank was a man of prominence
and wealth, a successful banker, negotiator of loans and real estate, and
lived at Warsaw, New York ; Corning, Iowa, and Kearney, Nebraska.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Elmendorf are as follows : George
Frank, who married Minnie Swezey, a daughter of G. D. Swezey, pro-
fessor of astronomy in the University of Nebraska ; Edward Elmendorf,
unmarried ; William McN. of Berkeley, California, who married Evelyn
240 LO.^ AXCKLES
Bohall ; Charles H. Jr., the soldier of the family ; Eleanor, wife of
Frank K. Lord, and Margaret, wife of Edgar A. Russell, who is a senior
lieutenant in the United States Navy.
John E. Coffin, whose name has become associated with some of
the prominent manufacturing and mining corporations of the southwest,
came to Los Angeles more than thirty years ago, and these years have
been filled with interests of increasing importance and value.
Mr. Coffin is a birthright Quaker and represents an old Quaker
family that originally came from England and bought the Island of
Nantucket. He was born at New Garden, North Carolina, September
17, 1860, a son of Dr. Samuel D. and Mary A. (Newlin) Coffin. His
father, who was born in North Carolina in November, 1825, was a
graduate in medicine from the Jefiferson Medical College in Philadelphia
and of the Miami College at Cincinnati. He practiced medicine at
Bloomingdale, Indiana, at Fairmount, Kansas, retired from his pro-
fession in 1884, and in 1890 reinoved to Whittier, California, where he
died in 1903. He married in North Carolina in 1853, and his widow is
still living. Of their six children the two survivors are Dr. W. V.
Coffin, of Whittier, and John E. Dr. Samuel Coffin was a cousin of the
famous abolitionist Levi Coffin, known as the president of the under-
ground railroad, and was associated with his cousin in this enterprise,
and later during the Civil war was an examining physician for the
LTnion army.
When John E. Coffin was six months old his parents removed to
Bloomingdale, Indiana, and there he attended school until the age of
ten. He then went with his family to Fairmount, Kansas, continued his
education in the public schools of that locality, and at the age of four-
teen entered Earlham College at Richmond, Indiana. He was a student
in that institution three years, then attended Haverford College, Penn-
.sylvania, this college having the highest standard of any Quaker col-
lege in the world, graduating in 1882. After graduation he spent one
year in postgraduate work in the Haverford Observatory with one of
America's best astronomers. During this period he compiled and pub-
lished an interest table which is now used in some of the banks and busi-
ness houses in Los Angeles. For one year he taught in the Vermillion
Grove Academy in Illinois, and for another year was employed in the
office of the United States Electrical Company at Chicago. On com-
ing to Los Angeles Mr. Coffin was in the real estate business until 1888,
and is familiar by personal experience with the big boom of the eighties.
He served as deputy city treasurer under M. D. Johnson until 1892, and
v/as then appointed assistant superintendent of the Whittier State School,
holding that post for two and a half years and for a similar period was
superintendent. On resigning Mr. Coffin became associated with Henry
Lindley, George Mason and his son Dean of Los Angeles in organizing
the Pokegama Sugar Pine Lumber Company of Siskiyou county, Cali-
fornia. Mr. Coffin was secretary and director of this corporation for
seven years. On selling out his interests he returned to Los Angeles
and with others organized the California Furniture Company. This has
since been his chief business enterprise, and is one of the leadmg con-
cerns of its kind on the Pacific coast. Mr. Coffin is vice-i^residcnt and
in charge of the promotion department.
He is also president of the Consolidated Reservoir & Power Com-
pany, a director of the Laguna Land and Water Company, and presi-
dent of the Empire Arizona Consolidated Copper Company. He is well
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 241
known in social and business circles, a member of the Chamber of Com-
merce, the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, University Club,
Los Angeles Athletic Club, and is a republican and a member of the
Quaker church at Whittier.
At Los Angeles, December 31, 1889, he married Bertha Lindley.
Edwin Charles Thorne is a Los Angeles architect, and during the
past half dozen years has given his services to a number of commercial
and industrial organizations in planning and carrying out their construc-
tion work. Mr. Thorne for a number of years was in the employ of
the city government of Los Angeles as an assistant building inspector
and structural engineer.
He was born in Nansemond county, Virginia, April 16, 1867, and
has lived in Los Angeles for over thirty years. His parents were Charles
Ransom and Ehza Ann (Bogardus) Thorne, both natives of New York
state, his mother being of English and Holland-Dutch ancestry, while
his father was of a Quaker family with a mixture of French, Spanish
and Holland-Dutch blood. Charles R. Thorne moved from New York
to Virginia for the sake of his health, and was a planter in the latter
state for five years. He then moved to Michigan, and from there to
Illinois, where he traded for a large tract of land and cleared up a hun-
dred sixty acres in Tazewell county. Still later he was a farmer and
building contractor in Kansas and Nebraska, and in 1888 came to Los
Angeles, where he did considerable building and contracting for a dozen
years. He died at Los Angeles in 1901, at the age of sixty-three, and
his wife passed away in 1915, aged seventy-nine. He was a Royal Arch
Mason, and in Los Angeles both he and his wife joined the Baptist
Church. He had been reared a Quaker and his wife a Presbyterian.
They had a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters.
Those now living are : Mrs. W. E. Railsback, of Kansas ; Dr. Elwood
James Thorne, an osteopath physician at Pasadena; Mrs. George W.
Watkins, of El Centro, California ; Edwin Charles, and Herbert W., an
assistant building inspector at Los Angeles. The oldest of the family
was Mrs. W. E. Latham, who died in Nebraska in 1918. Another son
died at the age of five years in Illinois. The first three of the family
were natives of New York state, one other was born in New Jersey,
and the last in Virginia.
Edward Charles Thorne was educated in the public schools of Illi-
nois, Kansas and Nebraska. He took work through the International
Correspondence School in training for his profession. Up to the age of
sixteen he worked at farming, and then served an apprenticeship at the
carpenter's trade, and followed that occupation from 1888 to 1907, being
a mechanic, foreman and superintendent. For two years he was also in
the mercantile business. He has been studying architecture since 1900.
For three years he was an assistant building inspector at Los Angeles,
and from 1909 to 1912 was structural engineer in the employ of the city
government. In 1912 he applied to the State Board and received a cer-
tificate as an architect. The following year he was employed profes-
sionally by the Union Realty Company, and since 1913 has been practic-
ing his profession alone. His offices are in the Western Mutual Life
Building.
While living in Nebraska Mr. Thorne served five years in the First
Nebraska Regiment of National Guards. He is an independent repub-
lican in politics and is a member of the Llniversity Methodist Episcopal
Church at Los Angeles. He also belongs to the Automobile Club of
Southern California. His home is at 1232 West Thirty-first street.
242 LOS ANGELES
At Holdrege, Nebraska, May 7, 1887, he married Miss Hilda W.
Rundstrum, of Galesburg, Illinois, where she was born and educated.
The}^ have four children, the first born at Holdrege, Nebraska, and the
others in Los Angeles. Agnes E., the oldest, is the wife of Roy C.
Wilson, of Santa Paula, California; Ina G. is at home; Elsie M. is the
wife of William C. Minger, of Los Angeles, and Dorothy B. is at home.
Mrs. Minger's husband served as a lieutenant in the Forty-second Field
Artillery and was twice ordered overseas, the influenza epidemic coun-
termanding the order the first time, and the armistice preventing his de-
parture the second time. Mr. Thome's children were all educated in the
public schools of Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.
Duke Stone, who came to Los Angeles from Oklahoma, where he
practiced law a number of years, is regarded as one of the ablest trial
lawyers of the Los Angeles bar, and does a large business representing
casualty insurance and other corporations in Southern California. A
lawyer of tried and tested ability, he is a man of many other interests^
and his private tastes run to ranching. He has a home in the foothills at
2107 Beachwood Drive, Hollywood, and also owns a ranch of thirty
acres in the San Fernando Valley, where he practices his hobby when
free from the cares of his law office. This little ranch is all irrigated, and
part of it is planted to walnuts.
Mr. Stone was born at Big Rock, twenty miles from Clarksville,
Tennessee, the great tobacco market, on August 29, 1877, a son of Wil-
liam J. and Mary Ellen (Beresford) Stone. His father was a native of
Tennessee, and his mother of Kentucky. They were married in Ten-
nessee. William J. Stone served four years in the Confederate Army.
In the early part of the war he was in Morgan's famous cavalry, and
when most of the organization was captured, he joined a command
under General Bragg. He -was shot through the leg at the battle of
Murfreesboro. He was a Tennessee farmer, and in 1887 moved with
his family .to Brownwood, in central Texas. He was interested in politics
both in Tennessee and Texas, and was one of the leading democrats of
those states. Both he and his wife died in Texas and are buried at
Brownwood. They had a family of five sons and three daughters, all
living except the oldest son, William, who died in Tennessee, and these
children have all made good records. J. C. is an attorney at Muskogee,
Oklahoma ; R. G. is in the lumber business at Henrj'etta, Oklahoma ;
W. I. Stone was one of the first settlers at El Centro, California, and is
in the real estate business in the Imperial Valley. The next in age is
Duke. Mrs. Thomas J- Beasley is the wife of a Texas legislator and
her home is in McCullough county, Texas. Mrs. John B. Young is the
wife of a merchant at Checotah, Oklahoma. Mollie Jessie, the youngest
daughter, is a teacher in the University of Oklahoma.
Duke Stone was ten years old when the family removed to Texas,
and he finished his education in the public schools of Brownwood. and
from high school entered Howard Payne College in that city, graduat-
ing with the degree A. B. in 1900. He also did post-graduate work at
Baylor University, at Waco, and to pay the expenses of his higher educa-
tion he taught country schools.
Mr. Stone was admitted to the bar in the territory of Oklahoma in
1903. and practiced at Ada. He did a large business there, became
prominent in politics, and from Oklahoma came to Los Angeles July 22,
1912. He was admitted to the bar in September, and while getting estab-
lished did some brief work and assisted the late H. H. Trowbridge, then
FRO.M THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 243
general counsel for the Southern California Edison Company ; also as-
sisted the firm of Avery & French in their office until October 1, 1913,
and for one year and two months held the office of first assistant United
States attorney of this district. For a short time he was assistant at-
torney for the Los Angeles Wholesale Board of Trade, but for the last
four and a half years has been steadily engaged in a large general prac-
tice, though specializing in casualty insurance work.
He has a prominent clientage, representing the American District Tele-
graph Company, the Los Angeles District Telegraph Company, the West-
ern Indemnity Company, the United States Lloyd, the United States
Casualty Company and the Western Union Telegraph Company. His
forte is the trial of cases before court or jury, and he is in court two-
thirds of his time. '
While in Oklahoma Mr. Stone represented the Missouri, Oklahoma
& Gulf Railway and the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway for seven
years, and was also attorney for the Western Union Telegraph Com-
pany at Ada about the same length of time. He is a member of the
Order of Railway Employes. Since coming to Los Angeles he has tried
a number of important cases as a representative of the United States
government.
Mr. Stone has always been active in democratic politics. He is a
Knight Templar Mason and still keeps his membership in Ada Lodge
No. 16 in Oklahoma, being a charter member of that lodge. He served
it as recorder three years. He is affiliated with the Woodmen of the
World at Ada^ and is a member of the Golden State Camp of the Mod-
ern Woodmen at Los Angeles. He also belongs to Borak Temple No.
75 of the Knights of Pythias at Los Angeles.
Mr. Stone married Miss Eleanor Anna Warren, of lola, Kansas, at
Ada, Oklahoma, November 26, 1907. She was born in County Wex-
ford, Ireland, of Presbyterian ancestry, and was brought to this coun-
try by her parents at the age of five years. She was liberally educated,
receiving the degrees A. B. and A. M. from Ottawa University, at Ot-
tawa, Kansas, and she met her husband while principal of schools at
Ada, Oklahoma. In Los Angeles Mrs. Stone takes a great interest in
the Parents-Teachers Association, and is also connected with the social
clubs of Hollywood. They have one daughter, Eleanor Louise, who was
born at Ada, Oklahoma.
J. M. Waterman. In the great volume of publicity that has been
given to the resources of southern California in recent years, particularly
those relating to the growing of agricultural crops, the name of J. M.
Waterman has appeared probably as frequently as that of any other in-
dividual. Mr. Waterman has practically a national reputation for his
work in connection with the marketing and co-operative selling move-
ments of California farmers, especially among the producers of California
lima beans. With almost thirty years of experience in business afifairs in
the state, his word is considered an authority on many subjects closely
and vitally related to the welfare of California agriculture.
Mr. Waterman, one of whose chief business interests is the J- ^i-
Waterman Selling Agency, represented not only in California but by
local and sub agencies in many parts of the countrj', has had his home
in Los Angeles since 1904. He was born in Bavaria, Germany, August
17, 1871, a son of Max and Emma (Bruell) Waterman. His parents
spent all their lives in Germany, where his father was a cattle raiser,
and he died at the comparatively early age of fifty^six. The widowed
244 LOS ANGELES
mother passed away a few years ago, when over seventy. In their
family were four sons and three daughters.
J. M. Waterman and two of his brothers came to the United
States, the brothers being Emil, of San Francisco, and William M., of
Los Angeles. Emil, the oldest, was the first to come to this coun-
try, being followed by William, four years later, while J. M. came in
1888. All have lived in California for thirty years or more. The
brothers, however, have all been back to Europe several times, J. M.
Waterman having been twice on the continent within the last twelve
years.
Mr. Waterman received his early education in Germany under
private tutors. At the age of fourteen, when his education was fin-
ished, he went to work in a wholesale dry goods establishment, and
had three years of training before he came to the United States, at
the age of seventeen. Landing in New York City, he remained a few
weeks, and then started for California, stopping off a few days in Chi-
cago and Omaha. From San Francisco he went to Hueneme, was there
a few weeks, and thence to Los Angeles. Returning to San Fran-
cisco, he became a student in the old Eddy Street school. After three
weeks he left his studies to go to work, and spent nine months in a
general merchandise store in Shasta county. Once more back in San
Francisco he remained a' brief time and then came south to San Jose
and found work in the store of A. & H. Martin as a bundle wrapper at
three dollars a week. He was there two and a half years, was earning
$150.00 per month and took care of all the cash and bookkeeping of
the establishment. While the salary was not important, the business
was one which presented a fine opportunity to the young man to learn,
and his employers put everything in his way to encourage him. Later
they found a position for him in San Francisco with Levi, Strauss &
Company, wholesale dry goods. Beginning again at fifty dollars a
month, at the end of two years he was getting a salar}' of a hundred
fifty dollars a month. All the time Mr. Waterman cared less about
the money remuneration and more about the oppfirtunities to learn
business methods thoroughly.
For some time he was at Hueneme in Ventura county working for
his brother William at twenty dollars a month and board. This was a
general merchandise store, but the feature of the business which espe-
cially appealed to Mr. Waterman was the handling of products direct
from the farm to the market. At this time Mr. Waterman was a
member of the National Guard of California. Wlien war broke out
with Spain in 1898 he was serving as corporal of Company H, 7th
Regiment of Ventura. This company had its baggage aboard a steamer
three times but was never sent to the field of action. In the meantime
Mr. Waterman had an ofifer from a San Francisco house to go on the
road as a traveling salesman, and he spent a year traveling. He then
engaged in business for himself at San Jacinto in Riverside county,
handling products and selling general merchandise direct to the con-
sumers. This business was terminated during 1900-01 when the farm-
ers suffered an almost complete crop failure. In 1902 Mr. Water-
man, returning to San Francisco, engaged with his brother Emil in
the grain and bean business for two years.
About that time Los Angeles began attracting the attention of the
world by a revival of business and by promise of becoming one of the
chief cities of the country. Mr. Waterman decided that his future
lot would be cast with the city of the south. His brother Emil chose
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 245
to remain in San Francisco, and is still in business there under his
own name.
On coming to Los Angeles in 1904 J. M. Waterman opened an office
under his own name, also built his home, and has since been very suc-
cessful in a number of lines of business, but chiefly in the buying of
beans direct from the farmers and selling them all over the United
Slates, Canada and Europe. He is and has been one of California's
largest bean buyers and distributors. In both lima beans and grain he
does a tremendous business, and his activities as a merchant and in
connection with many movements of benefit to the producers have re-
ceived special attention in many papers and magazines, including the
Saturday Evening Post. Mr. Waterman conducted at his own expense
a laboratory for some time, involving an outlay of a considerable
amount. The purpose of this laboratory was to put certain matters
that had theretofore been guess work on a real scientific basis. He has
always been impressed with the necessity of a scientific knowledge of
what the soil is capable of, before putting seed in the ground, and what
he has done in this direction has been a matter of general benefit and
interest to all of Southern California. His laboratory experiments were
conducted not only for soil examination, but with a view of determin-
ing the best fertilizers and also the production of the bacteria for crop
inoculation.
Mr. Waterman was manager of the Lima Bean Association, which
started in 1908, and was with it as long as the farmers of California
supported the organization. An extensive article on the Lima Bean
Association of California was written by John S. McGroarty, editor of
this publication.
The J. M. Waterman Selling Agency is Mr. Waterman's individual
business, with main offices at Los Angeles, but represented in San
Francisco and with other offices and representatives all over the United
States. He has also been active in the warehouse, storage and canning
business, under the name of the Farmers Warehouse Company and
Calima Canning Company.
Mr. Waterman is a republican in politics, though he voted for the
progressive candidate for governor, Hiram Johnson. He has been a
Mason since early manhood, has attained the thirty-second degree of
the Scottish Rite, is a Shriner and belongs to the various Masonic
bodies at Los Angeles. He is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic
Club, Brentwood Country Club, Argonaut Club and Merchants Ex-
change Club of San Francisco, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce
and the Automobile Club of Southern California. His offices are in the
Corporation Building and his home at 442 South Normandie avenue.
Cassii's D.wis Bl.mr has had a remarkably wide and diversified ex-
perience for a man of his years. He has been engaged in chemical, min-
ing, hydraulic and construction engineering on many important projects,
is a lawyer and business man, and is closely associated with some of the
larger business and civic enterprises of Los Angeles.
He was born at Los Angeles September 4, 1882, his birthplace being
a house at the southeast corner of West Seventh and Figueroa (then
Pearl) street. His father was Nelson Theodore Blair of Dayton, New
York, who came to California in 1873 and located at Los Angeles in
1878. Nelson Theodore Blair married at Piano, Tulare County, in 1873
Ellen Davis, whose father, Thomas Davis, settled at Chinese Camp,
Tuolumne County, in 1850. Ellen Davis was one of the first graduates
246 LOS ANGELES
of Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois, after it became a co-
educational institution. From that time until her marriage she was a
teacher in western schools.
Cassius Davis Blair attended public schools at Los Angeles, but went
to work at the age of fifteen. During 1890-99 he was employed in the
manufacturing plant of the Yosemite Conipany of California, and while
there made a special study of chemistry and engineering as applied to
manufacturing. This company sent him to the New England states in
1900 to install new plants.
In 1901 the Alabama Dredging and Jetty Company put him in charge
of special construction of equipment to cope with the peculiar conditions
of the "Y" cut ofif. Port Tampa, Florida. He then returned to California,
and during 1902-3 was with the Calkins Alanufacturing Company, min-
ing machinery and chemicals. While there he made a special study of
assaying and injetallurgy and assisted in perfecting a line of appliances
for those purposes. During the latter part of 1903 he joined the Cali-
fornia Mines Corporation in Calaveras County, California, and later in
the same vear went to Eldorado District in Nevada, where he remained
until 1906.
Again returning to California, ]\Ir. Blair assisted in laying out several
subdivisions, including Beverley Hills, and in the fall of 1906 became one
of the members of the initial parties in the preliminary work on the Los
Angeles Aqueduct. He was transferred to the City Engineer's Depart-
ment, and while his duties kept him in Los Angeles he entered the Uni-
versity of Southern California College of Law as a special student, com-
pleting the course entirely by attending night sessions. Passing the bar
examination, he was admitted to practice in all the courts of California
in January, 1912, and soon afterward to the United States Courts.
Much of his professional and technical service since then has been in
association with various movements for the improvement of the Los An-
geles business district, particularly that of West Seventh and West Sixth
streets. He is counsel for several large property holders and is counsel
and director of some highly productive manufacturing and agricultural"
organizations in the southwest. Mr. Blair is president of the Pecos Valley
Investment Company of California, a director of the Seventh Street Com-
pany, Greenfield Farms and Talbot Manufacturing Company, all of Los
Angeles.
In politics Mr. Blair is a republican. He is affiliated with East Gate
Lodge No. 290, F. and A. M., Pacific Chapter No. 192, Order of the
Eastern Star, serving as its worthy patron in 1914, is a metnber of
Ramona Parlor No. 109, Native Sons of the Golden West, and his church
associations are Episcopalian.
At Santa Ana, California, September 5, 1906, he married Mildred
Conuany Wetzel, a daughter of Peter W. and Margaret Loraine (Cor-
many) Wetzel. Her father was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania,
in 1855, and her mother was a native of Lancaster, Fairfield County,
Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Blair have one son, Philip J., born at Los Angeles
June 15, 1909.
Albert J. Wallace has been a resident and active figure in the busi-
ness and civic life of Southern California for thirty years. His business
energies have been absorbed by merchandising, banking, and large opera-
tions in lands, especially swamp reclamation work. For a dozen years he
has been a factor in oil development, operating with Mr. McOuigg in the
organization of the Traders Oil Company, of which he is an official.
Ck^cy^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 247
Mr. Wallace was born at Wellington, Ontario, Canada, February 11,
1853, a son of Donald and Harriet (Lasby) Wallace. He was liberally
educated in the public schools and in Victoria University, Toronto, Can-
ada. He was preparing for the Methodist ministry until failing health
obliged him to give up that profession. In 1878 he went out to the
prairies of North Dakota and engaged iq merchandising, farming and
Ijanking in Pembina County until 1886. In that year he came to Los An-
geles and has since been a prominent real state operator, his work as a
real estate man figuring largely in the constructive processes of reclama-
tion. The Traders Oil Company, of which he is secretary and director,
is one of the principal producing companies in the Midway Field. He is
also a director of the Amierican Fuel Ojil Company.
Mr. Wallace has long been prominent in the public life of his city and
state. He was chairman of the Finance Committee of the Los Angeles
City Council for three years. For four years, during 1911-14, he served
as lieutenant governor of California. Though a republican, he has also
been especially prominent in anti-liquor work, both state and national,
and is state president of the Anti-Saloon League of California. He is a
member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the California
Club and City Club. In 1912 the University of Southern California gave
him the honorary degree LL. D.
Mr. Wallace has four children : Kenneth Clark, born in Pasadena in
August, 1890, is a graduate of high school and of the University of South-
ern California. He received his Master of Arts degree from Harvard
University, and is now one of the superintendents of the Traders Oil
Company in the Midway oil field. Donald, the second son, born in Pasa-
dena in Januar)-, 1893, is also a high school graduate. He finished his
course in Harvard L'niversity in 1916 and recently returned from France,
where he was a bomber in a flying squadron. The two daughters are
Helen Harriet, a graduate of the University of Southern California, and
Katherine. a student in high school. Mrs. Wallace is the daughter of
Rev. J- M. Hagar, of Los .-\ngeles, California.
C. H. WoLFELT came to California in 1906. He brought with him a
routine e.xperience as a shoe clerk gained back in his home town of
Fostoria, Ohio, while working for a shoe merchant named J. F. Peters.
Mr. \N'olfelt was born in Fostoria April 16, 1879, and while attending
high school had worked in a shoe store.
For three years after coming to Los Angeles he was with the
Wetherby-Kayser Shoe Company. He left that firm for a distinct pur-
pose. Most young men are ambitious to get into a business of their
own, but C. H. Wolfelt had more than an ambition, he had a vision
which prompted him to strike out in new lines and build a business of
a distinctive personality and atmosphere. It was his ideal to do an
exclusive business, one not in competition with the common run of stores.
Even ten years ago when the business was started, with the enthusiasm,
good taste and ideals of the founder as the biggest part of the capital,
there was something unique in the furnishing, environment and the equip-
ment of the first shop at 432 South Broadway. Mr. Wolfelt had no
purpose to attract a miscellaneous custom, but from the first regulated
his patronage by a display and service which made an exclusive appeal.
Out of that preliminary enterprise has developed what is known
all over the west, and because California is a social center for the world,
therefore known in many continents, as "The Bootery." The Bootery
248 LOS ANGELES
is represented by shops in three California cities, Los Angeles, San
Francisco and Pasadena. Recently plans have been formulated to estab-
lish another branch of the business in New York City. These shops
exist solely to supply the exclusive and high class patronage of women.
The business furnishes a wide variety of styles in woman's footgear,
but practically only one class, that of the highest. Those who exemplify
the quiet elegance of good taste in their dress do not consciously seek to
advertise the origin of the goods they wear, but among women of that
class in California it is more and more taken for granted that their
common tastes find satisfaction when shoes are concerned in "The
Bootery" shops.
The business, conducted under the name C, H. Wolfelt Company, was
greatly enlarged in 1913, with the opening of a shop at San Francisco
and another in Pasadena. The San Francisco store is at 152 Geary street
and the Pasadena store in the Maryland Hotel Building. The business
w"as incorporated November 9, 1908, with Mr. Wolfelt as president.
Mr. Wolfelt is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Brent-
wood Country Club, Culver City Country Club, Automobile Club of
Southern California, Los Angeles Chaiilber of Commerce and Merchants
and Manufacturers Association.
At Los Angeles May 28, 1907, he married Miss Mabel C. Ander-
son, who was born and educated in southern California. They have a
daughter, Martha Louise, born at Los Angeles. The family home is at
2211 Budlong avenue. However, Mr. and Mrs. Wolfelt spend much of
their time in New York City. Mrs. Wolfelt is the champion woman auto-
mobile driver of the world. In 1918 she won all the cups and broke
all the records for a woman at the wheel.
Charles W. Lyon, a prominent native son of the Golden West, has
achieved distinction as a hard working and capable lawyer, a member
of the firm Fredericks and Hanna in the Merchants National Bank
Building at Los Angeles. This prominent law firm comprises four attor-
neys — J. D. Fredericks, Byron C. Hanna, Arthur L. Veitch and Charles
W. Lyon.
Mr. Lyon was born in Los Angeles September 13, 1887, a son of
James H. and Laura Emma (Simpson) Lyon. His father and mother
were natives of Maine. The Lyon ancestry goes back to the earliest set-
tlement of New England, one of the family connections being the famous
John Alden, and in a later generation the poet Longfellow was a relative.
The Simpsons are an old family of Machias, Maine, where they were
established in Revolutionary times. James H. Lyon and his wife were
married in Maine, and the former came to California fifty years ago
around the Horn, his wife subsequently joining him after a trip across
the plains. James Lyon during his active life was a carpenter foreman
and architect, and constructed many of the old-time buildings in Los An-
geles. In early life he was noted as an athlete, being the champion long-
distance runner of Los Angeles for a number of years. The family home
was formerly on Fifth and Spring streets. The parents are still living,
both well preserved, and of their family of nine children five sons and
two daughters are still living. Some of them are now in other states.
Mrs. Frank K. Eckley, the oldest child, lives at Fresno, and she and her
husband are well known socially and also in a business way both at Los
Angeles and Fresno. Josiah F. is a past president of the Native Sons
of the Golden West, is a telegraph operator for the Southern Pacific and
^^^:?<'^$5-^^^^^-<W^
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 249
a resident of Los Angeles. Ludlum Longfellow, the youngest of the
family, is with the United States Army at Camp Kearney.
Charles W. Lyon, the eighth child, was educated in Los Angeles,
attending public schools and business college. At the age of fifteeen he
went to work for the Title Insurance and Trust Company, spent six years
with that organization, and at the same time carried on the study of law
in night school. He left the company at the age of twenty-one and con-
tinued his law work in the office of Thorpe & Hanna and was admitted
to the bar in 1910 at the age of twenty-three. He remained with the firm
of Thorpe & Hanna, and that firm today is Fredericks and Hanna, with
Mr. Lyon a junior partner.
Mr. Lyon has been prominent in republican politics for a number of
years. In 1914 he was elected to the Legislature from the Sixty-second
District, being then twenty-seven years of age. He was re-elected in
1916 and in 1918 was chosen to the' State Senate to represent the Thirty-
fourth District. His four-year term began January 1, 1919. The Thirty-
fourth is the largest senatorial district in California. Mr. Lyon served as
city attorney of Venice, California, in 1917-18. He was only twenty-one
years of age when he was elected president of Los Angeles Parlor No.
45 of the Native Sons of the Golden West. He is past state president
of the California State Aerie of Eagles, which has over thirty thousand
members in California. He is past president of Ocean Park Aerie No.
924 of this order, and is exalted ruler for 1919-20 of Santa Monica Lodge
of Elks No. 906. He is also affiliated with Ocean Park Lodge No. 369,
A. F. and A. M., and is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
Mr. Lyon and family reside at 700 Victoria Avenue at Venice. He
married Miss Nancy Player Janney on September 21, 1912. Mrs. Lyon
was bom in Salt Lake City, Utah, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank G.
Janney. Her father was one of the eminent metallurgical engineers of
America and the world, and was one of the founders of the famous Utah
Copper mines, was mill superintendent of all the copper mines of LItah
and of other mines in Arizona, and was associated with the noted Colonel
D. C. Jackling in many of his enteqjrises. Mrs. Janney, the widowed
mother of Mrs. Lyon, lives on South Harvard boulevard in Los Angeles.
Mrs. Lyon received her education in Los Angeles, being a graduate of
the Westlake School for Girls. She is a member of Santa Monica Bay
\\'oman"s Club. Their two children, both born in Los Angeles, are Nancy
Jane and Charles W. Jr.
Simon Nordlinger. The modern cosmopolitan world of Los An-
geles has appreciation of one of its most perfect and adequate commer-
cial institutions in the handsome establishment at 631-633 South Broad-
way known as S. Nordlinger & Sons, Gold and Silversmiths. Without
doubt it is one of the largest and finest jewelry houses on the Pacific
Coast.
When the founder passed away a few years ago he had two worthy
successors in his sons, who are the proprietors today. Simon Nord-
linger was a conspicuous example of the genius and skill of a foreign
country transplanted to the rich and virgin soil of America. He was
born in Alsace-Lorraine, near the Swiss border, May 11, 1845. At the
age of thirteen he left home to become an apprentice under a Swiss watch-
maker. In 1864, at the age of nineteen, through the generosity of his
uncle in New York City, he came to America and spent about four
vears in New York. The spirit of the west attracted him and he came
250 LOS ANGELES
as far as Cheyenne, Wyoming, remaining there eight months, until the
first transcontinental railroad had been completed. He traveled to San
Francisco as a passenger on the first transcontinental train to reach that
city at the Golden Gate. The opportunities he was seeking were not
present in San Francisco. Then followed a visit to southern California,
where his quest was likewise unrewarded until from San Diego he
stopped at Los Angeles, visiting a young man who had been one of his
companions in Switzerland. This friend informed him of a watchmaker
who desired to sell his business. After a brief negotiation Mr. Nord-
linger bought the shop. This transaction occurred in 1869. At that time
Los Angeles had about five thousand inhabitants, perhaps two thousand
whites and the remainder Mexicans and Indians. Involved m the deal
there was no special stock and little more in fact than a place to work.
The shop was in an old one-story adobe shack with a floor space of
about 12x40 feet on Commercial street between Main and Los Angeles
streets.
The distinguishing qualities of the place of business were the per-
sonality and character of the neat proprietor, who had a genius for
success, combined with sound intelligence, thrift, integrity and foresight
and a thorough skill as a watchmaker and jeweler., He displayed at his
little old fashioned window at the front a few watches and some cheap
jewelry, while outside hung a large wooden watch as a typical sign. He
worked alone, living in the rear of the store and closing and locking the
door when he went out to dine. It is not too much to say that the splendid
store of today is a practical monument to the industry and character of
the young man who went to work on Commercial street in 1869. He
acquired the confidence and patronage of the people of that day. After
a time he had to employ help and carry a larger and larger stock. The
business outgrew the first store, he moved to larger quarters in a better
location, and this history repeated itself until there were six removals
before the present location in the center of the retail business section
was occupied. The present home of S. Nordlinger & Sons is nine blocks
southwesterly from the first place of business.
March 31, 1874, five years after establishing his business in Los
Angeles, Mr. Nordlinger married at San Francisco, Miss Fannie Berg.
She was born at San Francisco, and her birth was the first record of a
Jewish girl born in that city. She died at Los Angeles February 22, 1905.
They were the parents of' two sons, Louis S. and Melville. These sons
as they grew up manifested some of the qualities of business, and in
1904 Louis was given a place in the business and in 1907 Melville came
in, resulting in the organization of a stock company under the name
of S. Nordlinger & Sons.
After forty-two years of active service with the business Simon
Nordlinger passed away, April 2, 1911. The firm has been continued
with Louis S. as president. The late Mr. Nordlinger after his business
was completely devoted to his home, and his aftection for and the
richness of love he enjoyed in the family circle were among the most
conspicuous facts of his long and useful life.
Louis S. Nordlinger, president of S. Nordlinger & Sons, Gold and
Silversmiths, entered his father's business twenty-five years ago at the
engraver's bench, was made secretary when the business was incorporated,
and since his father's death has been its president and active executive.
Thus the story of this business, told in the sketch of his honored
father, Simon Nordlinger, is continued through his own personality and
B'ROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 251
career. Mr. Nordlinger was born in Los Angeles June 21, 1875. His
birthplace was the third house north of Second street on Fort street,
now Broadway. He attended the public schools and graduated in 1893
from Belmont School at Belmont, California. He was prepared there
for Leland Stanford University, but instead of going to college accepted
the advice of his father to learn the jewelry engraver's trade. He spent
the }'ear 1894 and a part of 1895 in a private office at San Francisco
and in the latter year returned to Los Angeles and entered the engraving
department of his father's business. That was his chief work in the
establishment for eight years, and after that he had experience in all
branches of the business. The firm of S. Nordlinger & Sons was in-
corporated in 1907 with Louis Nordlinger as secretary. In 1911, after
his father's death, he became president.
The present handsome location and establishment at 631-633 South
Broadway represents the sixth removal of the business since it was
established in 1869. and has been occupied since 1910. This is the
old jewelry house and establishment at Los Angeles and one of the
first ten oldest of all business concerns in the city.
Mr. Nordlinger is also a director of the Farmers and Merchants
National Bank of Los Angeles, a director of the Morris Plan Bank, is a
former director of the Alerchants and Manufacturers Association, and
is the first vice-president and for five years has held that office in the
California Gold and Silversmiths Association. He is a member of Corona
Parlor, Native Sons of the Golden West, and has been its treasurer for
the past seventeen years and a member of the Parlor since 1896. He is
affiliated with \\'estgate Lodge No. 335, F. and A. M., at Los Angeles,
is a past master of that lodge, and in 1911 received the honorarj' thirty-
third degree in the Scottish Rite. He is also a member of Al Malaikah
Temple of the Mystic Shrine, is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic
Club, Culver City Country Club, and a member of the Board of Gover-
nors of the Federated Jewish Charities. His firm belongs to the Los
Angeles Chamber- of Commerce, the Chamber of Commerce of the
United States, the iNIunicipal League and the Alerchants and Manu-
facturers Association.
Mr. Nordlinger married ]Miss Rose B. Loew, of Los Angeles, Janu-
ary 2, 1907. She is a native of Los Angeles, and was educated in the
city schools, public and private, as well as in Europe. Mrs. Nordlinger
is a daughter of Jacob Loew, of Los Angeles, who came to the city in
1868. and she is a granddaughter of the distinguished Calif ornian, the
late Harris Newmark, who died in 1916, and who came to Los Angeles
in 1856. Harris Newmark, author of the recently published "Sixty
Years in Southern California," was a monumental figure in this citv,
and his career is fully sketched on other pages. Mrs. Nordlinger has
been veiT active in Red Cross Canteen work at both depots, looking
after the incoming and outgoing soldiers. Mr. Nordlinger was likewise
identified with this local war work, particularly in the. Liberty Loan
campaigns and as a member of the Red Cross teams. Mr. and Mrs.
Nordlinger have two children, both natives of Los Angeles. Fannie
Emily and Louis S., Jr. The family home is at 1537 West 9th street.
Stephen H. Taft, father of Judge Frederick Harris Taft, of the
Superior. Court of Los Angeles County, spent the greater part of his long
and useful life in Iowa, but was also a resident of Southern California
and is distinguished here as the "father" of Sawtelle.
He was born at Volney in Oswego County, New York, September 14,
252 LOS ANGELES
1825, the sixth in a family of ten children born to Stephen and Vienna
(Harris) Taft. The founder of the family in America was Robert Taft,
who came from England and settled at Mendon, Alassachusetts, in 1679.
Robert was the father of five sons, and the generation including Judge
Frederick i\. Taft is of the ninth in direct descent. One of the sons of
Robert Taft was the ancestor of former President WiUiam H. Taft.
Stephen T. Taft was born in a log house on a farm, and was chiefly
indebted to his mother for his early education. He worked as a farm
hand, taught school, and at the age of twenty was licensed to preach by
the Wesleyan Methodist Church. His religious experience was one proof
of his independence of mind. He early identified himself with the Chris-
tian Union movement, later became a Unitarian, and in 1854 organized
an independent Congregational Society in Pierrepont Manor, Jefferson
County, New York, and preached to it three years. For five years he was
pastor of an independent church at Martinsburg in Lewis County,
New York.
In the fall of 1862 he moved to Iowa, contracted for the purchase of
nearly seven thousand acres of land on the West DesMoines River in
Humboldt County and selected the site for a new town, which was first
known as Springvale and later as Humboldt. The following year he
brought out a colony of about fifty persons, laid out his town, superin-
mill, and also operated a hotel. He was a great lover all his life of trees,
tended the construction of a dam and saw mill, later built a grist and flour
and in Humboldt superintended the planting of thousands of trees and
donated two parks dedicated to the use of the public, one being Taft's
Park and the other John Brown Park. The name of the latter recalls his
enthusiasm for the great abolitionist, John Brown, and his own active
part in that cause. After John Brown was hanged Mr. Taft preached a
sermon which was published and attracted much attention.
The first five years he spent in Iowa he was pastor of the Christian
Union Church. In 1868 he began the work of founding an unsectarian
institution of learning known as Humboldt College, which opened in Sep-
tember, 1872, and of which he was the first president. Among the in-
fluential eastern friends who helped him in this undertaking were Wen-
dell Phillips, Edward Everett Plale, James Freeman Clark, Henry W.
Longfellow, Oliver Ames, Henry ^^'ard Beecher, William Lloyd Garrison.
Peter Cooper, Charles Sumner and William Cullen Bryant.
He also commenced the publication of a republican newspaper known
as the Humboldt County True Democrat, which later became the Hum-
boldt Kosmos and is now the Republican. He was identified with every
interest and activity of th2 Humboldt community for over thirty years.
He has been described as a man of medium height, strong, rugged, and
able to endure all the hardships and privations of pioneering. Several
times in Iowa he was caught in blinding blizzards of that section, and he
had many other narrow escapes from imminent danger.
Besides the papers which he published he wrote for th; public press,
and the vigor of his mind was undimmed to the very end. In 1913 he
returned to his old town of Humboldt and was the principal speaker at
the semi-centennial of the community. He was a strong advocate of tem-
perance and one of the early members of the prohibition party. Only a
few weeks before his death he wrote a letter in which he expressed the
fundamental reasons for a general condemnation of all people for the Ger-
man Kaiser and the system he represented.
-Mr. Taft came to California in 1896. He was then over seventy years
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 253
of age, but he had strength and resources to found another town, Saw-
telle, adjoining the National Soldiers' Home. He published a monthly
paper known as the Bay District Investigator, one of the objects of which
was to promote the annexation of Sawtelle to Los Angeles, a movement
which culminated about a year before his death. He was prominent in
the Iowa Association of Southern California, served as its honorary presi-
dent, and was a member of the Centenary Club of Los Angeles, composed
exclusively of near-centenarians. At the age of eighty-nine he sat for a
full vear upon the Los Angeles County Grand Jury.
Death came to him as he desired, while in the full possession of his
faculties and engaged in the work he loved. While pruning a tree for one
of his tenants at Sawtelle he fell to the ground, was severely stunned, but
walked home. His death occurred as a reaction of the shock, and came
on April 22, 1918, at the age of ninety-two years and seven months
Two tributes written after his death serv^ to express some of the
dominant characteristics of his life: "Mr. Taft could do more different
things and have them all going at one time than any man in the northern
half of the state of Iowa." "He was a worthy citizen and a forceful per-
sonality. He was a builder, one of the few who could, despite his handi-
caps, impress his character upon communities and times."
February 22, 1853, he married J\Iary A. Burnham, of Madison, New
York. Her father, Rockwell Burnham, was of a family established in
Rhode Island in the middle of the seventeenth century. Mrs. Taft died
at Santa Monica, California, February 1, 1898. Several years later Mr.
Taft married a niece of his first wife, Mrs. Etta Burnham Barber, who
with two adopted girls survive him. By his first marriage he had six
children : George B., who died in infancy ; ^lary V., the only daughter,
who died in 1889, at the age of twenty-two : Elwin S., the youngest of
the family, who died in 1900; William J., Frederick H. and Sidney A.,
who survive their honored father.
Frederick Harris Taft, who has been a resident of Santa Monica
since 1894, has practiced law in Southern California for a quarter of a
century, and for the past six years has been a judge of the Superior Court
of Los Angeles County. He presided over the Juvenile Court nearly two
years, and is now in charge of Department No. 13, the Court of Domes-
tic Relations.
A man better fitted for the responsibilities he enjoys it would be diffi-
cult to find. Mr. Taft is not an extreme in any direction, not radical, is
not easily attracted to superficial advantages, and altogether is a plain,
everyday citizen, has led a well regulated life, one of much usefulness, and
has the temper, the training, the insight and the patience which serve to
distinguish even the routine performance of his daily duties.
, Judge Taft was born at Pierrepont Manor, Jefferson County, New
York, April 4, 1857. and is a son of the late Stephen Harris Taft, a well-
known figure in Southern California, whose career is reviewed on other
pages. Judge Taft shared in the general admiration of his father, and
also pays a particular tribute of gratitude to his mother, Mary Antomette
Bumham Taft, who was born May 1. 1832, at Madison. New York, and
died February 1, 1898, at Santa ^lonica, California. His mother shared
all the hardships of the Iowa pioneer, was a w-oman of unusual poise, and
gave quiet, efficient support to all charities and good works in her old
home town of Humboldt. Iowa, where her memory is the cherished pos-
session of the entire community. She was one of the mothers who crown
womanhood with sanctity.
254 LOS ANGELES
Judge Taft grew up in Iowa from the age of six, acquired a liberal
education and was a successful newspaper man in that state before taking
up the practice of law. He graduated from Humboldt College in 1879,
but his experience in newspaper work began in 1874, and until 1882 he
was editor and publisher of the Humboldt Kosmos. In 1883 he was one
of the founders of the Hardin County Citizen, and from 1884 to 1887 was
associated as editor and manager with the Fort Dodge Messenger. He
continued newspaper and publication work in Sioux City until 1892.
While at Sioux City he was a student of law in Morningside College, now
Northwestern University, from which he received his LL. B. degree
in 1892.
With eight months of practice as a lawyer in Iowa Judge Taft arrived
at Los Angeles in 1893, and became one of the organizers of the firm of
Tanner & Taft at Santa Monica in 1894. In 1904 this firm became Tan-
ner, Taft & Odell, and so continued until Judge Taft went on the bench.
Judge Taft has taken considerable interest in politics as a progressive
republican for many years. He served as city attorney of Santa Monica
from 1902 to 1907, and was appointed superior judge in August, 1913.
He was regularly elected to that office in 1914. At different times he has
held offices on school and library boards of Santa Monica, and during the
war was community chairman of the Four-AIinute Men.
Judge Taft is a member of the Chamber of Commerce at Santa Monica
and in Los Angeles is a member of the Union League, Los Angeles Ath-
letic, City Club and Gamut Club. He became an Odd Fellow in early
manhood, but has never been attracted into the ranks of secret fraterni-
ties. He is a member of the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles.
February 23, 1881, at Humboldt, Iowa, he married Frances M. Welch,
daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Ira L. Welch of that town. Mrs. Taft has
been prominent in social and club life at Santa Monica for a quarter
of a century, is former president of the Santa Monica Bay Woman's
Club, and past matron of Seaside Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star.
Judge and Mrs. Taft had three children: Alice Marie, who died in
infancy; Muriel Charlena, wife of Nathan E. Shutt, of Santa Monica;
and Harris Welch Taft, who married Lucile Sharp and is a member
of the law firm Tanner, Odell & Taft at Santa Monica and Los Angeles.
John Barnes Miller, chairman of the Southern California Edison
Company, has long been identified with the electrical industry in this
section. He first came to California in 1891, remaining here about a
year, and returned east only because of his father's ill health. In 1896,
however, he moved to California, almost immediately becoming identified
with the development and consolidation of electric power companies. His
work has been an important contributing factor in giving southern Cali-
fornia its premier position in the L^nited States in the production and
transmission of hydro-electric power.
John B. Miller was born at Port Huron in St. Clair county, Michigan,
October 23, 1869, a son of John Edgar and Sarah Amelia (Barnes)
Miller. His American ancestry goes back two or three centuries to an
original colony of Mennonites or Swiss-German Quakers who left
Europe on account of religious persecution and settled in Pennsylvania
at the invitation of William Penn. He attended public and private
schools at Port Huron and was graduated from the Ann Arbor High
School in 1888, and then entered the University of Michigan, studying
for the degree of A. B. At the end of his second year, however, he
was compelled to leave college on account of a serious crisis in his
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 255
father's health. He undertook the management of his father's business
and at the same time studied law. In 1892 he became interested in a
plantation near Delhi, Richmond Parish, Louisiana, managing it for
about two years and then returning to -klichigan, where his father was
again actively engaged in business. They became interested in the
steamboat and fuel business, to which he devoted about three years.
In 1896 Mr. Miller moved to California, made a thorough investiga-
tion of conditions, and was deeply impressed with the wonderful oppor-
tunities for development of electricity for light and power and the utiliza-
tion of water power for long transmission, a method then little known,
and decided to ally himself with the industry.
At that time southern California had a number of little plants, none
large enough to attract capital and therefore none in a position to e.xpand
or render adequate service to a growing community. Mr. Miller took
the lead in amalgamating a number of small plants, acquired valuable
water power sites, and in 1901 was elected president of the Edison
Electric Company, one of the first great electric utilities furnishing electric
current to numerous towns and cities throughout southern California.
He served as the president of this company and its successors until 1917,
when the Pacific Light and Powier Corporation was consolidated with
the Southern California Edison Company, and Mr. Miller became the
executive head of the combined companies with the title of chairman.
Many other institutions have felt the impress of his resourceful
mind.- He was one of the founders of the old Southwestern National
Bank, later consolidated with the First National Bank; also of the Los
Angeles Trust Company, now the Los Angeles Trust & Savings Bank;
and at the present time is president of the Landowners Company, the
San Joaquin and Eastern Railroad Company, and is vice-president of
the Sinaloa Land and Water Company and of California Delta" Farms,
Inc. He is a director of the First National Bank of Los Angeles, of the
Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, and of Santa Barbara Gas and
Electric Company. Mr. Miller is a trustee of the Polytechnic Elementary
School of Pasadena, where he has his home, and of the Harvard School
of Los Angeles. He is a member of the California, Automobile, Los
Angeles Athletic and Los Angeles Country Clubs, all of Los Angeles;
the Midwick Country Club and Overland Club of Pasadena, Santa Bar-
bara Club, Santa Barbara Polo Club and Santa Barbara Country Club,
the Pacific LTnion and Bohemian Clubs of San Francisco and the Racquet
and Tennis and D. K. E. Clubs of New York. He is a member of the
Delta Kappa Epsilon college fraternity, is a Knight Templar Mason and
Shriner, a republican in politics and an Episcopalian in religion.
On April 17, 1895, Air. Miller was married to Miss Carrie Borden
Johnson, of Yonkers, New York. They have the following children:
Philadelphia Borden, now Mrs. Donald 6'Melveny, John Borden, Edgar
Gail, Morris Barnes and Carrie St. Clair Miller.
From the beginning of the great war Mr. Miller was v^ry active
in the American Red Cross. He was appointed a member of the execu-
tive committee of the American Red Cross War Finance Committee, and
in 1917 he was elected a member of the Board of Incorporators. In
the first War Fund campaign he served as chairman for all the territory
west of the Mississippi, and in the second War Fund campaign was
chairman for the Pacific Division. He then sened as manager of the
Pacific Division from December 1, 1918, to June 1, 1919, and is now a
member of the Advisorv Committee for the Division.
256 LOS ANGELES
Southern California Edison Company. No one in Los Angeles
or the Southwest can escape a vivid daily reminder of the vital service
and efficiency of the Southern California Edison Company, one of the
greatest public utilities in America. A brief history and description of
the company and its service brings to light some interesting facts in the
pioneer development and transmission of the electric current which are
probably known only to a few of the older residents and practical electric
engineers.
In 1888 Walter S. Wright of Pasadena and E. E. Peck cam; into
possession of a miniature electric plant at San Pedro. Soon afterwards
the village trustees cancelled their street lighting contract, and the owners
of the plant found no outside demand to warrant the operation of the
business. Mr. Peck, after returning from the East, bought back the
engine and dynamo, which in the meantime had been sold to a junk
dealer, and tried to secure a franchise from the city of Los Angoles.
The City Council denied his application and the county supervisors
granted him the privilege of operating a plant outside the city limits.
This plant, consisting of an eighty-horsepower boiler and engine and a
thirty-light arc lighting dynamo, was installed in a small building on
Twenty-second Street, just east of Vermont Avenue.
It began operation in December, 1895, and that was the origin of
the West Side Lighting Company, one of the first of many constituent
enterprises now merged in the complete history of the Southern Cali-
fornia Edison Company. Th; West Side Lighting Company comprised
E. E. Peck, Walter S. Wright, William R. Staats and George H. Barker
and at the time of its organization was known as the Walter S. Wright
Electric Company. Mr. Wright remained with the company as attorney
and member of the board of directors until his death a few years ago,
while Mr. Staats is still a director and one of the vice presidents of the
Southern California Edison Company.
Unable to secure a public franchise from the City of Los Angeles,
the company extended its business to private patrons of the city by
setting poles on private property and only crossing the city with the
wires. Mr. Wright finally discovered an old franchise and bought it.
This franchise was shortly to expire and one of its conditions required
that the company furnish lighting at the City Hall. Two weeks remained
to comply with this condition. Every man in the company went to work
and got the line as far as Third and Hill Streets by stringing th; wires
on the poles of the Los Angeles Traction Company. A block still re-
mained between that point and the City Hall and there were no poles.
Permission was granted by Mr. Byrne to set a horse on the roof of the
Byrne Building, and by this means the wires were carried to the tower
of the City Hall, and on the night before the day on wdiich the franchise
would have expired a light was burning in the City Hall tower.
All of this was done in the early part of 1896, and on June 5th of
that year*he West Side Lighting Company was incorporated, capitalized
at five hundred thousand dollars, and with an authorized bond issue of
three hundred thousand dollars. Business was rapidly developed, soon
outgrowing the little plant on Twenty-second Street, and the directors
deciding to build for all time, liought the power house and equipment
of the Second Street Cable Railway, at Second and Boylston Streets,
the site of the present Los Angeles Number One Substation, and trans-
formed the whole into a modern steam power station. This plant began
operation in December, 1896, but contrary to expectations, the demand
grew so rapidly that additional machinery had to be installed the follow-
ing month, and still more later in the same year.
FROINI THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 257
In December, 1897, these properties were taken over by the Los
Angeles Edison Electric Company, capitalized at five hundred thousand
dollars and with a bond issue authorized at equal amount. This capitaliza-
tion was later increased to a million dollars and a bond issue authorized
for one million two hundred fifty thousand dollars. The company at that
time had great trouble in securing necessary capital for its rapid develop-
ment. At that juncture John B. Miller, for many years president of the
company and now chairman, became treasurer and a director. He at
once proved an important factor in the affairs of the company and has
been its directing genius along financial lines. Twenty years ago the
company's one and only bookkeeper was R. H. Ballard, now first vice
president, while the cashier was W. L. Percey, now treasurer.
The second chapter in the history of the Edison Company begins
with the Redlands Electric Light and Power Company, starting with the
year 1892. The Redlands group had been developing hydro electric
generation and long distance transmission. It comprised jirincipally H.
H. Sinclair, Henry Fisher and A. W. Decker, an electrical engineer.
After organizing the company, in 1892, they set about the building of a
hydro electric plant at the mouth of Mill Creek Canyon, some eight miles
from the city of Redlands. Mr. Decker insisted on the installation of a
three-phase system similar to one th?n being operated in an experimental
way in Tivoli, near Rome. But much delay ensued before the plans and
specifications for such a plant would be accepted by any American com-
pany manufacturing electrical equipment on the ground that such a plan
was "a foolish piece of business." Finally the General Electric Com-
pany agreed to build two two hundred and fifty kilowatt three-phase
generators. These were installed in what is now known as Mill Creek
Number One Hydro Electric Plant, being the first hydro electric three-
])hase long distance plant in the world. These generators and the original
motors connected to the transmission system, the first of the kind ever
turned out by the General Electric Company, and placed in operation in
1893, are still in daily service and are operating in parallel in perfect
accord with the latest creations of the art at Big Creek.
The Redlands group also organized the Southern California Power
Company and acquired water rights on the Santa Ana River, and in
1899 put in operation a second station, now known as Mill Creek No. 2.
Meanwhile the Los Angeles group was having trouble in keeping its
power supply equal to its increasing business. It was but natural the
two groups, the one having the market and the other the power, should
join forces, and in June, 1898, the Southern California Power Company
was taken over by the Edison Company. The Santa Ana River No. 1
plant was completed and put into operation in December, 1898, trans-
mitting power at 33,000 volts to Los Angeles, sixty-eight miles away,
a distance and voltage theretofore unheard of. The many difficulties
and problems in this marvelous piece of electrical pioneering were solved
to the lasting credit of the principal men in the organization.
In subsequent years the Edison Company rapidly expanded, acquir-
ing the Pasadena Electric Light and Power Company, and entering the
Pasadena field in August, 1898; purchasing the gas and electric properties
of the Santa Ana Gas and Electric Company at Santa Ana in 1899, and
acquiring the Redlands properties in 1901. In 1902 the Kern River
l>rojects were acquired with the purchase of the California Power Com-
l)any, and the same year Mountain Power Company, with Santa Ana
River No. 2, was taken over.
These properties were all taken over September 1, 1902. at a
258 LOS ANGELES
that time the Edison Electric Company was 'organized, with a capitaliza-
tion of ten million dollars and an authorized bond issue of the same
amount, hi 1903 occurred the consolidation of the United Electric Gas
and Power Company with the Edison Company, giving the latter gas and
electric properties at Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and Long Beach,
and electric properties at Redondo, San Pedro and Monrovia, including
a steam plant at Santa Monica. In 1906 gas properties were acquired
in Whittier, Pomona, Riverside, Redlands, Colton and Monrovia, but
subsequently the gas properties were all sold.
The present corporation, the Southern California Edison Company,
was formed in 1909, with a capitalization of thirty million dollars and an
authorized bond issue of the same amount. Later the capital was in-
creased to a hundred million dollars, with bond issue authorized at a
hundred thirty-six million dollars. In 1909 W. A. Breckenridge came
into the organization as vice president and general manager, and is now
president of the company. Mr. Breckenridge is an eminent electrical
engineer, and was engineer in charge of construction at the building of
the hydro.-electric plant at Niagara Falls.
Besides the improvements and extension of existing plants and
service from year to year, the next important acquisition came in 1917
with the purchase of the franchises, property and business of the Pacific
Light and Power Corporation, and controlling interest in the Ventura
County Power Company and several smaller companies. This purchase
gave to the Edison system hydro-electric plants including the famous
Big Creek plants, known all over the world, a large steam plant at
Redondo, and altogether more than doubled the company's power supply.
The merger was also notable because it brought into the company as its
largest individual stockholder and as a member of the board of directors
Henry E. Huntington, a name that speaks for itself everywhere in
California.
■ W. E. Dunn entered the board of directors with Mr. Huntington,
bringing with him his wide knowledge of legal and practical affairs ; also
Howard E. Huntington, whose experience in the administrative affairs of
corporations is of value to the management.
Others who came into the organization at that time were George C.
Ward, now second vice president ; A. N. Kemp, comptroller, and E. R.
Davis, superintendent of the Northern Division.
A few words should be added to this historical sketch to describe
the status of the company at the close of 1918. The Southern California
Edison Company, with its subsidiaries, most important of which are the
Mt. Whitney Power and Electric Company, operating in the San Joaquin
Valley, and Santa Barbara Electric Company, operating in Santa IBarbara
and vicinity, now has an installed capacity of 158,920 horsepower in
seventeen hydro-electric plants, and 143,510 horsepower in eight steam
stations, a total installation of 302,430 horsepower. All these are linked
together and inter-connected by more than fifteen hundred miles of high-
tension transmission lines operating at voltages ranging from 150,000 to
30,000 volts, and eight thousand miles of distributing lines, supplying
electric energy to two hundred thousand consumers. This electric energy
does more than light and serve transportation needs, being in fact an
indispensable asset to the entire industrial work of the territory covered.
The company serves with electric energy a population of more than a
million people, covering an area of fifty-five thousand square miles,
greater than that of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Delaware.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 259
The first steam plant operated by the company had a capacity of
eighty horsepower. The capacity of the latest steam plant at Long Beach
is 65,000 horsepower. The first hydro-electric plant had a capacity of
500 kilowatts ; the latest, the two' Big Creek plants, 32,000 kilowatts
each. The first long distance transmission line was eight miles long
and was operated at 2,300 volts. The latest is 240 miles long and is
operated at 150,000 volts. The first company had a capitalization of
five hnndred thousand dollars, and the latest one hundred million dollars.
These facts and figures have real significance and portray in a graphic
manner some of the most important developments in Southern California
during the last thirty years.
Interesting and illustrative of the growth of .Southern California, as
• has been the history of the company, the personal element is even more
so to those who are familiar with what has been achieved. What is
affectionately termed "The Edison Spirit" has dominated all of the deal-
ings of officers and employees with each other and has naturally radiated
to the public, giving potent force to the slogan introduced by Mr. Miller
when he first took charge of its affairs: "Good service, courteous treat-
ment, square dealing."
Besides Mr. Miller, Mr. Ballard and Mr. Percey, already mentioned,
those prominently identified with the upbuilding of the company and in
its employ over fifteen years are B. F. Pearson, general superintendent
of the Southern Division, who had charge of niuch of the original con-
struction ; S. M. Kennecy, general agent in charge of the commercial de-
partment, and who has a record of developing new business for the
company nearly always in advance of its generative capacity ; W. L.
Frost, his assistant, who has advanced through all of the grades ; John
Otto, purchasing agent, who entered the service as district agent ; A. W.
Childs, superintendent of sales, and Dr. H. C. Stinchfield, chief surgeon.
This sketch would not be complete without tribute to the memory
of the late H. H. Trowbridge, who, as general counsel for the company,
solved many intricate problems, and his foresight and wisdom were sub-
stantial factors in making the Southern California Edison Company a
permanent institution of the Southwest.
Arthur George Wells. Indelibly inscribed on the pages of rail-
road history is the name of Arthur George Wells, whose strong intellect
and long experience, directed in the channels of railroad business, have
gained for hmi pre-eminence as one of the most efficient men in his line
of work in the country, and for the past seventeen years he has held
the responsible and dignified position of general manager of the Atchi-
son, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. A level, cool-headed man of business
may command respect because of his great capacities in managing vast
enterprises and his power to change circumstances to suit his will, and
may have as chosen associates others of like calibre and similar power
and interests, but in order to secure the confidence and esteem of his
fellowmen he must have other qualities of a tenderer nature to win per-
sonal affection. That Arthur George Wells does possess these char-
acteristics of a finer fibre his many friends in every walk of life testify,
and these make him one of the best liked men in his community, as well
as one of the most successful in the railroad business.
Arthur George Wells was born at Guelph, Ontario, Canada, Novem-
ber 18, 1861, a son of Arthur and Georgiana Dora (Ridout) Wells. The
Wells family is one of the old ones in England, and its records show
that Mr. Wells' grandfather on the paternal side fought under General
260 LOS ANGELES
Wellington against the great Napoleon in the Spanish campaign. Untit
he was fifteen years old Arthur George Wells attended the public schools
at Guelph, but then left school to become self-supporting, entering the
railroad service, in which it was destined he was to rise rapidly. Like
the majority of men in the railroad business who reach the top, he under-
stands every detail of it, and his first connection with this line of en-
deavor was as an apprentice machinist in the shops of the Kansas City,
St. Joseph & Council Bluflfs Railroad at St. Joseph, Missouri, which he
entered in 1876. Having completed his apprenticeship, in 1880 Mr. Wells
was made clerk of the mechanical department, leaving this road for the
position of purchasing agent for the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. It
v/as in March, 1882, that Mr. Wells began his long career with the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in a clerical position at San'
Marcial, New Mexico, and in June, 1882, was promoted to be chief
clerk to the general superintendent of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad at
Albuquerque, New Mexico, while in 1885 he was made trainmaster of
the same road, and in these connections he was able to gain an insight
into the management which served to prepare him for duties involving
laiger responsibilities. By 1886 the ability of this alert young man
brought him to the notice of those in authority, and he was made assist-
ant to the general manager of the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad, and in
January, 1890, he was offered and accepted the position of superintendent
of the Ohio, Indiana & Western Railroad, which was merged into the
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, in the service of
which road Mr. Wells remained until 1893, being superintendent suc-
cessively of the Peoria, Indianapolis and St. Louis divisions. He was
then made assistant to the first vice president of the Atchison, Topeka &
Santa Fe Railroad, and was then given a general superintendency of the
Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, and later was made general superintendent
of the Southern California Railroad, the San Francisco Railroad and the
Jan Joaquin Railroad, all branches of the Atchison, Topeka tS: Santa Fe
Railroad, and in 1901 was made general manager of the Coast Lines of
the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, with headquarters at Los An-
geles, California.
On October 15, 1884, Mr. Wells was married at St. Joseph, Missouri,
to Gertrude Alice Barnard, a daughter of John F. Barnard. Mr. and
Mrs. Wells have two daughters, namely Helen Audley, who married H.
Norton Johnson and lives at Salt Lake City, Utah, and Louise. Since
he cast his vote, Mr. Wells has been a stanch republican, but aside frorh
exercising the right of suffrage, he does not participate in politics. Social
by nature, he finds relaxation and congenial companionship in the Los
Angeles Countrj', California, Pacific, LTnion and San Francisco Clubs
and the Automobile Club of Southern California. The sound judgment
and singleness of purpose which have characterized Mr. Wells' handling
of the various problems which were presented to him for solution in the
flifferent positions he has held have been valuable assets to him and his
roads, and he has developed with his knowledge of railroad experience a
keen interest in life, an open mind and quick understanding. He is a
man of personal charm, culture and widely diversified interests, and is
one of the constructive citizens of his part of the country.
Wii.FOKD E. Dkming is a veteran real estate man of Los Angeles, has
l)ecn familiar with the changes and developments in real estate values for
a quarter of a century, and has been one of the city's most successful
operators and business men.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 261
He was born at Marysville in Alarshall County, Kansas, July 17, 1860,
a son of Dr. J. C. and Ulrica C. (Erickson) Deming. A few years after
his birth his parents moved to Indiana, wliere his father practiced his
Ijrofession as a physician in ditTerent parts of the state. Mr. Deming at-
tended public school and graduated from high school at the age of sev-
enteen, after which he spent one year in Purdue University. He became
a successful stock raiser and farmer in Jasper County, Indiana, and re-
mained there until 1892, when he sold out. A visit to Southern California
soon afterward led him to make his home here permanently, and in 1894
he settled at Los Angeles. He has ever since been an independent real
estate operator, handling his own properties almost entirely. One of his
transactions has a special interest. In 1901 he bought from I. W. Hell-
man a piece of property on South Cirand avenue between Seventh and
Eighth streets, a frontage of 112 feet, at seventy dollars per front foot.
Recently he was oiTered three thousand dollars a front foot for the
same ground.
Mr. Deming is a republican. In Los Angeles January 23, 1901, he
married Ruth Benedict. They have two children : Wilford E., Jr.,
bora in 1904, attending the Los Angeles High School : and Rita, who is
a student in the Intermediate High School.
Isaac O. Levy, secretary of the prominent general insurance agency
of Behrendt & Levy Company, is a native son of Los Angeles, and has
had an active business career here for over twenty 3'ears.
He was born on Fort Street, now Broadway, between Fifth and
Sixth streets, where Clunes Theater stands, October 7, 1879, a son of
Michel and Rebecca (Lewin) Levy. His father was born in Alsace-
Lorraine, France, Februar)^ 18, 1834, and came to this country in 1851,
making his way to California the same year. He had varied business
experiences at San Francisco, Placerville, Diamond Springs, in Somona
county, also in Nevada for five years, and in 1868 moved to Los Angeles
and established himself in the wholesale liquor business. After various
changes the firm became M. Levy & Company, and long before the
death of Michel Levy on March 27, 1905, his was recognized as the
oldest house of its kind in Southern California. He also established
the Los Angeles Vintage Company. His dominent characteristic was
integrity and a degree of fidelity which made him the personification of
good faith in business and personal life. All who knew him admired
this splendid trait. It is said that he was never asked to put anything
in writing when transacting a business deal. He was very liberal in
behalf of all Jewish activities and charities, was a York Rite Mason, and
was identified with many important phases of the growin"g city of
Los Angeles for nearly forty years. In 1870 he married Rebecca Lewin,
a native of Germany. She came to Los Angeles in 1867 and died Sep-
tember 11, 1918. They left three children: Mrs. Lemuel Goldwater,
of Los x\ngeles ; Miss Therese, of Los Angeles, and Isaac O.
Isaac O. Lev}' graduated from the Los Angeles High School in
1897, and during the following eight years was associated with his father
in the wholesale liquor business. Oh leaving his business he formed a
partnership with Sam Behrendt in the general insurance business and
they organized the Behrendt-Levy Company. In 1908 the business was
incorporated with Mr. Levy as secretary and treasurer. This is one
of the largest and most successful general insurance agencies in Southern
California. Mr. Levy is also a director of the Moreland Truck Company.
He is affiliated with Westgate Lodge A. F. and A. M., is a member of
262 LOS ANGELES
the Scottish Rite and Mystic Shrine, and is past president of the B'nai
B'rith and a member of Corona Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden
West, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Automobile Club of Southern
California, and in politics is independent. At Los Angeles, July 9,
1913, he married Dora Marks. They have one son, Donald Michel,
born April 11, 1916.
Lucius K. Chase, who came to Los Angeles in 1897, has enjoyed
an enviable position as an able civil and corporation lawyer, and has
been identified with many prominent cases, especially litigation over
land titles, and has represented the affairs of a number of corporations.
Mr. Chase, who is also prominent in the social and civic life of Los
Angeles, was born at Madison, Wisconsin, July 29, 1871, a son of
Ransom J. and Mary M. (Baker) Chase. His father was a successful
lawyer and the son was given the best advantages in school and home.
He attended public school at Sioux City, Iowa, the Shattuck Military
Academy at Faribault, Minnesota, and took his law course in the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin, where he graduated LL. B. in 1896. For one year
he practiced law with his father at Sioux City, and in 1897 came to Los
Angeles, and from the first has been specializing in corporation and
civil law. He is counsel for the Security National Bank and a director
and counsel for a number of corporations.
Mr. Chase owns several hundred acres of ranch land in the Palo
Verde Valley, devoting this land to the cultivation of cotton and alfalfa.
Some years ago he became interested in the law suit of California vs.
United States, involving a tract of fifty thousand acres. He was em-
ployed as attorney to represent the settlers of Palo Verde Valley. Cali-
fornia claimed all the swamp lands of that valley, but Mr. Chase suc-
ceeded in defeating the claims of the state in behalf of the actual settlers.
Mr. Chase was for five years a director of the Chamber of Com-
merce and is now chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Advisory
Board in the matter of the Arizona-California River regulation. He
is a member of the Los Angeles City Board of Education and was chair-
man of the Finance Committee therefor for the years 1917-18. He
belongs to the Southern California Lodge No. 278, F. and A. M., Los
Angeles Commandery No. 9, K. T., and is also a Scottish Rite Mason
and Shriner, a member of the Beta Theta Pi College Fraternity, the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and has been a member of the Cali-
fornia Club since 1899, and is a member of the Los Angeles Country
Club, City Club and Chamber of Commerce. Politically he is a re-
publican.
At Los Angeles, January 1, 1900, Mr. Chase married Marie E.
Watkins. Her father, D. F. Watkins, was a Congregational minister
and went as a missionary of his church to Old Mexico in 1871. Mr.
and Mrs. Chase have three children: Lucius Foster, born in 1901, a
graduate of the Los Angeles High School and now a student in the Uni-
versity of California; Ransom W., born in 1904, and David P., born in
1908, students in the public schools of Los Angeles.
Hyman Schwartz is a Los Angeles lawyer, whose connections have
been of steadily growing importance, and whose life record, for a man
of his years, is one of great interest and inspiration.
He was born at Rene, Russia, February 12, 1887. The family crossed
the ocean to New York City in 1900, lived there until 1907, and the
parents have since lived in Lx>s Angeles, where Jacob Schwartz is propri-
etor of the New York Bottling Works.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA 263
As a boy in his native country Hvman Schwartz attended a gymna-
sium, the equivalent of a college in this country. In New York City he
perfected his knowledge of the English language and also took courses in
chemistry and mechanical drawing. After coming to Los Angeles he
pursued the study of law in the night classes of the University of South-
ern California. During the clay he was working as bookkeeper for Cun-
ningham, Curtis iS: Welch, the largest stationery house in Los Angeles.
He proved a valuable man to that organization, was made assistant credit
man, and was outside salesman for the last two and a half years before
he began active practice in 1912. Mr. Schwartz is now attorney for his
old employers. He was admitted to the California bar in 1912 and has
since been admitted to practice in the Federal Courts. He enjoys a good
general practice, and among other interests he is secretary and partner in
the Pacific Rock Salt Company of Los Angeles. In 1916 he organized
what was known as the Engineering Construction Company, located on
North Main Street. He was its president until he sold out his interests
in 1918. This company manufactured aeroplane parts, pumps and flota-
tion machines. Mr. Schwartz sold out his interest in the business pre-
paratory to getting his services accepted in the army.
Mr. Schwartz, whose offices are in the Van NUys Building, is a re-
publican in politics, though he voted for Wilson at the second term. He is
a member of Los Angeles Lodge No. 42 F. and A. M., the oldest Masonic
Lodge in the city. He is also affiliated with Lodge No. 99 of the Elks.
At Los Angeles February 12, 1912, he married Miss Esperance Silver-
berg. She was born in Chicago and was educated in the grammar and
high schools of that city. Her father. Dr. Henry M. Silverberg, was a
practicing ^entist in Chicago for about twenty years and since 1910 has
lived in Los Angeles.
Edgar E. Sellers. There are many notable examples in southern
California of the power and productiveness of an idea, and perhaps none
more recent and notable than the chain of Pacific Tea and ColTee Stores,
which now extend up and down the Pacific Coast to the number of half
a hundred or more. The man responsible for the idea and great growth
and prosperity of the Pacific Coft'ee Stores is E. E. Sellers, an expert
cofTee man. He has had a long experience in every branch of the busi-
ness, from clerk to importer, and his genius consists largely in one fact,
that once a good idea came to him he had the faith and the energy to
carry it out and make it a success.
Edgar E. Sellers was born at Barry, Pike county, Illinois, January
19, 1865, a son of George W. and Sarah (Fletcher) Sellers. He gradu-
ated from high school at nineteen, and then for two years taught, after
which he moved with his family to Kansas, his father buying a ranch
near Newton. After some experience on the farm Mr. Sellers became
a traveling salesman for the Nave-McCord wholesale grocery house of
St. Joseph, Missouri. He was with them four years and then went with
William Schotten & Company of St. Louis, a wholesale cofTee house.
His first work there was as sample boy, and later he was with the firm
as a traveling representative for eleven years. In 1894 he oj^ened a small
retail cofifee store at Sedalia, Missouri, and gradually developed it until
he was supplying many stores as a wholesaler. He sold out his Missouri
business in 1903 and moved to Denver, Colorado, becoming coffee buver.
tester and manager of the coffee department of the Morey Mercantile
Company. In that capacity he gained a knowledge of coffee that made
him a real expert, a knowledge extending all the way from the coffee
plantation to the point of consumption.
264 LOS ANGELES
Mr. Sellers resigned his position in Denver in 1913, and coming to
Los Angeles in the fall of that year opened up the tirst exclusive coffee
store at Long Beach. That was the origin of the Pacific Coffee Stores
Company, his partner being O. E. Adamson. Mr. Sellers put into
practice many original ideas in the building and equipment of the coffee
stores. Nearly all of them are housed in neat brick and glass buildings,
'some in the business districts of cities and towns and others located
conveniently to the great highways of automobile traffic. One essential
feature of the plan is the installation of complete roasting machinery, so
that the coffee can be delivered hot from the roaster in bags and sold
direct to the customer, eliminating much of the handling and additional
costs imposed between the coft'ee plantation and the coft'ee store. A
familiar name for the Pacific Coffee Stores is "Coft'ee Stations," and
from a beginning of one store at Long Beach the chain has grown link
by link until in the spring of 1919 there were fifty-one stores on the
Pacific Coast, and also in Reno, Nevada, and Ogden, Utah. At that
time a hundred and twenty people were employed, most of them being
taught the full details and the roasting and blending of coft'ee, and to
know the goods they were selling. In 1918 the chain of stores sold
over two million pounds of coft'ee, with an aggregate value of half a
million dollars. Each store is a manufacturing plant, and all the buying
and selling makes an automatically checked system, so there is no